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PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



BY 



MARY SOMERVILLE, 

AUTHOR OF 'THE ^^ CONNECTION OF THE PHYSICAL SCIENCES, 
'' MECHANISM OF THE HEAVENS," ETC., ETC. 



SECOND AMERICAN 



FROM THE NEW AND REVISED LONDON EDITION. 



WITH ADDITIONS AND 



A GLOSSARY 



PREPARED FOR THIS EDITION, 



V^" 



PHILADELPHIA : 
LEA & B LANC HARD, 
185 0. Vl ^-1 



• Si 



Entered, according to Act of CongresSj in the year 1849, by LEA & 
BLANCHARD, in the Clerk's ( 
Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 



BLANCHARD, in the Clerk's Office, of the District Court of the 



TO 



SIR JOHN F. W. HERSCHEL, BART., K.H., 

&c., &c. 

Dear Sir John, 

I AVAIL myself with pleasure of your permission to dedicate 
my book to you, as it gives me an opportunity of expressing my 
admiration of your talents, and my sincere estimation of your 
friendship. 

I remain, with great regard, 
Yours truly, 

Mary Somerville. 



London, 29th February, 1848. 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



The improvements and additions embodied in the new London 
edition are fully enumerated in the Author's Preface. The 
American publishers have supplied what was much needed, a 
complete Glossary of Scientific and Technical Terms ; which, 
with some few additions scattered through the pages, and en- 
closed in brackets [ ], were prepared by Dr. Ruschenberger. 

These additions, while they have improved the work, have 
added materially to the number and size of the pages. The 
pubhshers, consequently, trust that it will be found more effec- 
tually suited to the wants of the private reader as well as to those 
of the higher classes in schools. 

Philadelphia, December, 1849. 



PREFACE 

TO THE NEW EDITION. 



Since the publication of the first edition of this work, the Author 
has been able to correct many inaccuracies that had crept into 
it, and to collect much new matter from works since published, 
which is embodied in the present edition, and has considerably 
added to its size. The recently-published Second Volume of 
Baron Humboldt's invaluable « Cosmos,''^ with Colonel Sabine's 
learned notes, and sundry papers that have appeared in the 
scientific periodicals of Europe, America, and India, bearing on 
questions of Physical Geography, have yielded profitable infor- 
mation. 

It was the Author's wish, and her Publishers intention, that 
the present edition should be accompanied by a series of Maps to 
illustrate the more important questions of Physical Geography 
treated of in it ; but Mr. A. Keith Johnston having announced 
the publication of a new edition of his " Physical Atlas" in a 
reduced size, at a low price,^ the first two Nos. of which have 

^ '' Cosmos," by Alexander Von Humboldt, translated under the 
superintendence of Colonel E. Sabine, F.R.S. Second Edition. Lon- 
don, 1848. 

2 Alexander Keith Johnston's ''Physical Atlas,'' 4to., in Monthly 
Numbers. Edinburgh, 1849. [Published by Lea & Blanchard, Phila- 
delphia, 1850.] 
1* 



6 PREFACE. 

already appeared, the project was relinquished, in the belief that 
Mr. A. K. Johnston's smaller Atlas will furnish suitable illustra- 
tions to this work. 

The reader will find this edition enriched with some of the 
resuhs of the recent researches of Messrs. Campbell, Thomson, 
Strachey, and Dr. Hooker in the Himalaya, which tend largely 
to elucidate the Physical History of that gigantic chain. The 
book is also indebted to Mr. Pentland for some new matter, 
hitherto unpublished, on the countries of South America visited 
by him during his two public missions to Peru and Bolivia. 

The absence of the Author from England during the printing 
of the following sheets has obliged her to have recourse to a friend 
conversant with her subject to revise the press ; to him she begs 
to express her acknowledgments, as well as to Sir William Jack- 
son Hooker, who very kindly undertook to correct the portion of 
this new edition connected with Geographical Botany and Vege- 
table Physiology — subjects respecting which he has so much 
contributed to extend our knowledge. Captain Beechey has 
been good enough to render similar service, in revising certain 
passages bearing upon Hydrography. 

May, 1849. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I. 

Of Physical Geography — Position of the Earth in the Solar System — 
Distance from the Snn — Civil Year — Inclination of Terrestrial Orbit, — 
Mass of the Sun — Distance of the Moon — Figure and Density of the 
Earth from the Motions of the Moon — Figure of the Earth from Arcs 
of the Meridian — from Oscillations of Pendulum — Local Disturbances 
— Mean Density of the Earth — Known Depth below its Surface — 
Outline of Geology page 13 

CHAPTER n. 
Direction of the Forces that raised the Continents — Proportion of Land 
and Water — Size of the Continents and Islands — Outline of the Land 
— Extent of Coasts, and proportion they bear to the Areas of the 
Continents — Elevation of the Continents — Forms of Mountains — 
Forms of Rocks — Connection between Physical Geography of Coun- 
tries and their Geological Structure — Contemporaneous Upheaval of 
parallel Mountain Chains — Parallelism of Mineral Veins or Fissures 
— Mr. Hopkins's Theory of Fissures — Parallel Chains similar in 
Structure — InterruptioHs in Continents and Mountain Chains — Form 
of the Great Continent — The High Lands of the Great Continent — 
The Atlas, Spanish, French, and German Mountains — The Alps, 
Balkan, and Apennines — Glaciers — Geological Notice . . 37 

CHAPTER III. 
The High Lands of the Great Continent (continued) — The Caucasus — 
The Western Asiatic Table-Land and its Mountains . . 54 

CHAPTER IV. 

The High Lands of the Great Continent (continued) — The Oriental 
Table-Land and its Mountains 58 



8 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER V. 

Secondary Mountain Systems of the Great Continent — That of Scandi- 
navia — Great Britain and Ireland — The Ural Mountains — The Great 
Northern Plain page 69 

CHAPTER VI. 

The Southern Low Lands of the Great Continent^ with their Secondary 
Table-Lands and Mountains 77 

CHAPTER Vn. 

Africa — Table-Land — Cape of Good Hope and Eastern Coast— Western 
Coast — Abyssinia — Senegambia — Low Lands and Deserts . 85 

CHAPTER Vni. 

American Continent — The Mountains of South America — The Andes — 
The Mountains of the Parima and Brazil . . . .9? 

CHAPTER IX. 

The Low Lands ol' South America — Desert of Patagonia/ — The Pampas 
of Buenos Ayres — The Silvas of the Amazons — The Llanos of the 
Orinoco and Venezuela — Geological Notice . . . .105 

CHAPTER X. 

Central America — West Indian Islands — Geological Notice . 114 

CHAPTER XL 
North America — Table-Land and Mountains of Mexico — The Rocky 
Mountains — The Maratime Chain and Mountains of Russian Ame- 
rica 119 

CHAPTER XII. 

North America {continued) — The Great Central Plains, or Valley of the 
Mississippi — The Alleghany Mountains — The Atlantic Slope — The 
Atlantic Plain — Geological Notice — The Mean Height of the Conti- 
nents 123 

CHAPTER XHI. 

The Continent of Australia — Tasmania, or Van Diemen's Land — 
Islands — Continental Islands — Pelas2,ic Islands — New Zealand — 



CONTENTS. 9 

New Guinea — Borneo — Atolls — Encircling Reefs — Coral Reefs — 
Barrier Reefs — ^Volcanic Islands — Areas of Subsidence and Elevation 
in the Bed of the Pacific — Active Volcanos — Earthquakes — Secular 
Changes in the Level of the Land page 136 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Arctic Lands — Greenland — Spitzbergen — Iceland — Its Volcanic Pheno- 
mena and Geysers — Jan Mayen's Land — New Siberian Islands — • 
Antarctic Lands — Victoria Continent 159 

CHAPTER XV. 

Nature and Character of Mineral Veins — Metalliferous Deposits- 
Mines — Their Drainage and Ventilation — Their Depth — Diffusion of 
the Metals — Gold — Silver — Lead — British Mines — Quicksilver — Cop- 
per — ^Tin — Cornish Mines — Coal — Iron — Most abundant in the Tem- 
perate Zones, especially in the Northern — European and British Iron 
and Coal — American Iron and Coal — Arsenic and other Metals — 
Salt — Sulphur — Diffusion of the Gems 168 

CHAPTER XVI. 
The Ocean — its Size, Colour, Pressure, and Saltness — Tides — Waves— 
their Height and Force — Currents — their Effect on Voyages — Tem- 
perature — The Stratum of Constant Temperature — Line of Maximum 
Temperature — North and South Polar Ice — Inland Seas . . 188 

CHAPTER XVII. 

Springs — Basins of the Ocean — Origin, Course, and Heads of Rivers — 
Hydraulic Systems of Europe — African Rivers — the Nile, Niger, 
&c 209 

CHAPTER XVIIl. 

Asiatic Rivers — Euphrates and Tigris — River Systems South of the 
Himalaya — Chinese Rivers — Siberian Rivers .... 224 

CHAPTER XIX. 
River Systems of North America — Rivers of Central America — Rivers 
of South America and of Australia 234 

CHAPTER XX. 

Lakes — Northern System of the Great Continent — Mountain System of 
the same — American Lakes 245 



10 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XXI. 

Temperature of the earth— Temperature of the Air — Radiation — Foci of 
Maximum Cold — Thermal Equator — Its Temperature, mean and ab- 
solute — Isothermal Lines — Continental and Insular Climates — Ex- 
treme Climates — Stability of Climate — Decrease of Heat in Altitude 
— Line of Perpetual Snow — Density of the Atmosphere — The Baro- 
meter — Measurement of Heights — Variations in Density and their 
Causes — Horary Variations — Independent Effect of the dry and aque- 
ous Atmospheres — Mean height of Barometer in different Latitudes — 
Depression in the Antarctic Ocean and in Eastern Siberia — Barome- 
tric Storms — Polar and Equatorial Currents of Air — Trade-Winds — 
Monsoons — Land and Sea Breezes— Gyration of the Winds in the 
Extra-Tropical Zones — Winds in Middle European Latitudes — Hurri- 
canes — The Laws of their Motion — Their Effect on the Barometer — 
How to steer clear of them — The Storm-Wave— Storm-Currents — 
Arched Squalls — Tornadoes — Whirlwinds — Water Spouts page 254 

CHAPTER XXII. 

Evaporation — Distribution of Vapour — Dew — Hoar-Frost — Fog — Re- 
gion of Clouds — Forms of Clouds — Rain — Distribution of Rain — Quan- 
tity — Number of rainy Days in different Latitudes — Rainless Districts 
— Snow Crystals — Line of perpetual Snow — Limit of Winter Snow on 
the Plains — Sleet — Hail — Minuteness of the ultimate Particles of Mat- 
ter — Their Densities and Forms — Their Action on Light — Colour of 
Bodies — Colour of the Atmosphere — Its Absorption and Reflection of 
Light — Mirage — Fog Images — Corona3 and Halos — The Rainbow — 
Iris in Dewdrops — The Polarization of the Atmosphere — Atmospheric 
Electricity — Its Variations — Electricity of Fogs and Rain — Inductive 
Action of the Earth — Lightning — Thunder — Distribution of Thunder- 
storms — Back Stroke — St. Elmo's Fire — Phosphorescence — Aurora 
— Magnetism — Terrestrial Magnetism — The Dip— Magnetic Poles 
and Equator — Magnetic Intensity — Dynamic Equator — Declination — 
Magnetic Meridian — Lines of equal Variation — Horary Variations — 
Line of Alternate Horary Phenomena — Magnetic Storms — Coinci- 
dence of the Lines of equal Magnetic Intensity with Mountain Chains 
— Diamagnetism 272 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

Vegetation— Nourishment and Growth of Plants— Effects of the differ- 
ent Rays of the Solar Spectrum — Classes — Botanical Districts 298 



CONTENTS. 11 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

Vegetation of the Great Continent — Of the Arctic Islands — And of the 
Arctic and North Temperate Regions of Europe and Asia page 312 

CHAPTER XXV. 

Flora of Tropical Asia — Of the Indian Archipelago^ India^ and 
Arabia 323 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

African Flora — Flora of Australia, New Zealand, Norfolk Island, and of 
Polynesia . . .330 

CHAPTER XXVII. 
American Vegetation — Flora of North, Central, and South America — 
Antarctic Flora — Origin and Distribution of the Cerealia — Ages o 
Trees — Marine Vegetation 341 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 
Distribution of Insects . .363 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

Distribution of Marine Animals in general — Fishes — the Marine Mam- 
malia — Phocse, Dolphins, and Whales 368 

CHAPTER XXX. 

Distribution of Reptiles — Frogs and Toads — Snakes, Saurians, and Tor- 
toises 383 

CHAPTER XXXI. 

Distribution of Birds in the Arctic Regions — In Europe, Asia, Africa, 
America, and the Antarctic Regions ..... 392 

CHAPTER XXXII. 
Distribution of Mammalia throughout the Earth . . . .412 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 
The Distribution, Condition, and future Prospects of the Human 
Race 436 



12 CONTENTS. 

APPENDIX. 

Table of Heights above the Sea of some of the Principal Mountain 
Chains 475 

Glossary 487 

Index . . 527 



PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



CHAPTER I. 

GEOLOGY. 

Of Physical Geography — Position of the Earth in the Solar System — 
Distance from the Sun — Civil Year — Inclination of Terrestrial Orbit — 
Mass of the Sun — Distance of the Moon — Figure and Density of the 
Earth from the Motions of the Moon — Figure of the Earth from Arcs 
of the Meridian — from Oscillations of Pendulum — Local Disturbances 
— Mean Density of the Earth— Known Depth below its Surface — Out- 
lines of Geology. 

Physical Geography is a description of the earth, the sea, and 
the air, with their inhabitants animal and vegetable, of the distri- 
bution of these organized beings, and the causes of that distribu- 
tion. Political and arbitrary divisions are disregarded, the sea and 
the land are considered only with respect to those great features 
that have been stamped upon them by the hand of the Almighty, 
and man himself is viewed but as a fellow-inhabitant of the gJobe 
with other created things, yet influencing them to a certain extent 
by his actions, and influenced in return. The effects of his intel- 
lectual superiority on the inferior animals, and even on his own 
condition by the subjection of some of the most powerful agents 
in nature to his will, together with the other causes which have 
had the greatest influence on his physical and moral state, are 
among the most important subjects of this science. 

The former state of our terrestrial habitation, the successive 
convulsions which have ultimately led to its present geographi- 
cal arrangement, and to the actual distribution of land and water, 
so powerfully influential on the destinies of mankind, are circum- 
stances of primary importance. 

The position of the earth with regard to the sun, and its con- 
nection with the bodies of the solar system, have been noticed by 
the author elsewhere. It was there shown that our globe forms 
but an atom in the immensity of space, utterly invisible from the 
2 



14 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

nearest fixed star, and scarcely a telescopic object to the remote 
planets of our system. The increase of temperature with the 
depth below the surface of the earth, and the tremendous desola- 
tion hurled over wide regions by numerous fire-breathing moun- 
tains, show that man is removed but a few miles from immense 
lakes or seas of liquid fire. The very shell on which he stands 
is unstable under his feet, not only from those temporary convul- 
sions that seem to shake the globe to its centre, but from a slow 
almost imperceptible elevation in some places, and an equally 
gentle subsidence in others, as if the internal molten matter were 
subject to secular tides, now heaving and now ebbing, or that the 
subjacent rocks were in one place expanded and in another con- 
tracted by changes of temperature. 

The earthquake and the torrent, the august and terrible minis- 
ters of Almighty Power, have torn the solid earth and opened the 
seals of the most ancient records of creation, written in indelible 
characters on the " perpetual hills and the everlasting mountains." 
There we read of the changes that have brought the rude mass 
to its present fair state, and of the myriads of beings that have 
appeared on this mortal stage, have fulfilled their destinies, and 
have been swept from existence to make way for new races, 
which, in their turn, have vanished from the scene, till the crea- 
tion of man completed the glorious work. Who shall define the 
periods of those mornings and evenings when God saw that his 
work was good ? and who shall declare the time allotted to the 
human race, when the generations of the most insignificant insect 
existed for unnumbered ages ? Yet man is also to vanish in the 
ever-changing course of events. The earth is to be burnt up, 
and the elements are to melt with fervent heat — to be again re- 
duced to chaos — possibly to be renovated and adorned for other 
races of beings. These stupendous changes may be but cycles 
in those great laws of the universe, where all is variable but the 
laws themselves, and He who has ordained them. 

The earth is one of seventeen planets which revolve about the 
sun in elliptical orbits : of these, twelve have been discovered since 
the year 1787.^ Mercury and Venus are nearer the sun than 

» The Solar System :— 

Mercury, nearest the Sun. known to the ancients. 

Venus, known to the ancients. 

The Earth. 

Mars, known to the ancients. 

Flora, discovered by Mr. Hind in 1847. 

Vesta, „ „ Mr. Olbers in 1807. 

Iris, „ „ Mr. Hind in 1847. 

Metis, „ „ Mr. Graham in 1848. 

Hebe, „ „ Mr. Hencke in 1847. 

Astraea; „ „ Mr. Hencke in 1845. 

Juno, ,, „ Mr. Harding in 1804. 



INFLUENCE OF THE MOON. 15 

the earth, the others are more remote. The earth revolves at a 
mean distance of 95,000,000 miles from the sun's centre, in a 
civil year of 365 days 5 hours 48 minutes 49-7 seconds, at the 
same time that it rotates in 24 hours about an axis which always 
remains parallel to itself, and inclined at an angle of 23° 27' 34"'69 
to the plane of the ecliptic ; consequently, the days and nights are 
of equal length at the equator, from whence their length progres- 
sively differs more and more as the latitude increases, till at each 
pole alternately there is perpetual day for six months, and a night 
of the same duration : thus the light and heat are very unequally 
distributed, and both are modified by the atmosphere by which 
the earth is encompassed to the height of about forty miles. 

With regard to magnitude. Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and 
Neptune are larger than the earth, the rest are smaller, but even 
the largest is incomparably inferior to the sun in size : his mass 
is 354,936 times greater than that of the earth, but the earth is 
nearly four times as dense. 

Though the planets disturb the earth in its motion, their form 
has no effect on account of their great distance ; but it is other- 
wise with regard to the moon, which revolves about the earth at 
a mean distance of 240,000 miles, and is therefore so near that the 
form of both bodies causes mutual disturbances in their respective 
motions. The perturbations in the moon's motions from that 
cause, compared with the same computed from theory, show that 
the earth is not a perfect sphere, but that it bulges at the equator, 
and is flattened at the poles : it even gives a value of the com- 
pression or flattening.^ Again, theory shows that, if the earth 

The Solar System — continued. 

CereS; „ „ M. Piazza in 1801. 

Pallas, „ „ Mr. Olbers in 1802. 

Jupiter, known to the ancients. 

Saturn, ,, ,, 

Uranus, discovered by Sir William Herschell in 1781. 

Neptune, „ „ M. Le Verrier and Mr. Adams in 1846. 

2 The compression of the earth is the flattening at the poles. Its 
numerical value is equal to the difference between the equatorial and 
polar diameters, expressed in feet or miles, [The amount of compres- 
sion, oblateness at the poles, is measured by the ratio of the difTerertce 
of the equatorial and polar diameters to the equatorial diameter, which 
is technically termed the oblateness. The following are the dimensions 
of the earth in miles : 

Radius at the equator . 

Radius at the pole .... 

Difference of equatorial and polar radii 

Mean radius, or at 45° Latitude 

Mean length of a degree . 

The fourth part of a meridian . 



Miles. 


Diameter. 


. 3962-6 


= 7925-2 


. 3949-6 


= 7899-2 


13-0 


= 26-0 


. 3956-1 


= 7912-2 


6905 
. 6214-2 







16 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

were throughout of the same density, it would be much less flat 
at the poles than the moon's motions show it to be, but that it 
would be very nearly the same were the earth to increase regu- 
larly in density from the surface to its centre ; and thus the lunar 
motions not only make known the form, but reveal the internal 
structure of the globe. Actual measurement has proved the truth 
of these results. 

The courses of the great rivers, which are generally navigable 
to a considerable extent, show that the curvature of the land dif- 
fers but little from that of the ocean ; and as the heights of the 
mountains and continents are inconsiderable when compared with 
the magnitude of the earth, its figure is understood to be deter- 
mined by a surface at every point perpendicular to the direction 
of gravitation, or of the plumb-line, and is the same which the sea 
would have if it were continued all round the earth beneath the 
continents. Such is the figure that has been measured in various 
parts of the globe. 

A terrestrial meridian is a line passing through both poles, all 
the points of which have their noon contemporaneously, and a 
degree of a meridian is its 360th part. Now, if the earth were a 
sphere, all degrees would be of the same length ; but, as it is 
flattened at the poles, the degrees are longest there, and decrease 
in length to the equator, where they are least. The form and 
size of the earth may therefore be determined by comparing the 
length of degrees in different latitudes.^ Eleven arcs have been 
measured in Europe, one in Peru, and two in the East Indies; 
but a comparison of no two gives the same result, which shows 
that the earth has a slightly irregular form. From a mean of ten 
of these arcs, M. Bessel found that the equatorial radius of the 
earth is 3963 025 miles, and the polar radius 3949*8 miles nearly. 
Whence, assuming the earth to be a sphere, the length of a mean 
degree of the meridian is 69*05 British statute miles ; therefore 
360 degrees, or the whole circumference of the globe, is 24,858 
miles ; the diameter, which is something less than a third of the 
circumference, is about 8286, or 8000 statute miles ; smd the 
length of a geographical mile of 60 to a degree is 6086*76 feet. 
The breadth of the torrid zone is 705 geographical miles, the 
breadth of each of the temperate zones is 645 miles, and that of 
each of the spaces within the arctic and antarctic circles 11,431 
miles nearly. The Astronomer Royal Mr. Airy's results, obtained 
ten years afterwards, only differ from those of M. Bessel by 127 

^ The theoretical investigation of the figure of the earth, the method 
employed for measuring arcs of the meridian, and that of finding the 
form of the earth from the oscillations of the pendulum, are given in 
the '' Connection of the Physical Sciences," by Mary Somerville, 7th 
Section, 7th edition; 



THE EARTH'S FIGURE. 17 

feet in the equatorial, and 138 feet in the polar radius, quantities 
not greater than the length of a ball-room. In consequence of the 
round form of the earth, the dip or depression of the horizon is a 
fathom for every three miles of distance ; that is to sa}^, an object 
a fathom or six feet high would be hid by the curvature of the 
earth at the distance of three miles. Since the dip increases as 
the square, a hill 100 fathoms high, would be hid at the distance 
of ten miles, and the top of Dhawalagori, the culminating point 
of the Himalaya, 28,000 feet high, would be seen to sink beneath 
the horizon by a person about 167 miles off; thus, when the 
height is known, an estimate can be formed of the distance of a 
mountain. 

The oscillations of the pendulum have afforded another method 
of ascertaining the form of the earth. Like all heavy bodies, its 
descent, and consequently its oscillations, are accelerated in pro- 
portion to the force of gravitation, which increases from the equa- 
tor to the poles. In order, therefore, that the oscillations may be 
everywhere performed in the same time, the length of the pen- 
dulum must be increased progressively in going from the equator 
to the poles, according to a known law,* from whence the com- 
pression or flattening at the poles maybe deduced. Experiments 
for that purpose have been made in a great number of places, 
but, as in the measurement of the arcs, no two sets give exactly 
the same results ; the mean of the whole, however, differs very 
little from that given by the degrees of the meridian and the per- 
turbations of the moon ; and as the three methods are so entirely 
independent of each other, the figure and dimensions of the earth 
may be considered to be known. The sea has little effect on 
these experiments, both because its mean density is less than that 
of the earth, and that its mean depth of perhaps four miles is 
inconsiderable when compared with 4000 miles, the mean terres- 
trial radius.* 

^ A pendulum which oscillates 86,400 times in a mean day at the 
equator, will do the same at every point of the earth's surface if its 
length be increased progressively to the pole as the square of the sine 
of the latitude. The sine of the latitude is a perpendicular line drawn 
from any point of a terrestrial meridian to the equatorial radius of the 
earth. That line expressed in feet or miles, and multiplied by itself, 
is the square of the sine of the latitude. Gravitation increases from the 
equator to the poles according to that law, and the length of the degrees 
augments very nearly in the same ratio. 

^ The compression deduced by M. Bessel from arcs of the meridian 

is r^ . that deduced by Colonel Sabine from his experiment with the 

pendulum is — • Other pendulum experiments have given a com- 

288'7 



18 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

The discrepancies in the resuUs, from the comparison of the 
different sets of pendulum experiments, and also of degrees of the 
meridian, arise from local attraction, as well as from irregularities 
in the form of the earth. These attractions, arising from dense 
masses of rock in mountains, cause the plumb-Hne to deviate from 
the vertical, and when under ground they alter the oscillations of 
the pendulum. Colonel Sabine, who made experiments with the 
pendulum from the equator to within ten degrees of the north 
pole, discovered that the intensity is greatly augmented by vol- 
canic islands. A variation to the amount of a tenth of a second 
in twenty-fours can be perfectly ascertained in the rate of the 
pendulum, but from some of these local attractions a variation of 
nearly ten seconds has occurred during the same period. The 
islands of St. Helena, Ascension, St. Thomas, the Isle of France, 
are some of those noted by Colonel Sabine. 

There are other remarkable instances of local disturbance, 
arising from the geological nature of the soil ; for example, the 
intensity of gravitation is very small at Bordeaux, from whence 
it increases rapidly to Clermont-Ferrand, Milan, and Padua, 
Avhere it attains a maximum (owing probably to dense masses of 
rock under ground), and from thence it extends to Parma. In 
consequence of this local attraction, the degrees of the meridian 
in that part of Italy seem to increase towards the equator through 
a small space, instead of decreasing, as if the earth were drawn 
out instead of flattened at the poles. 

It appears from this that the effect of the whole earth on a pen- 
dulum or torsion balance may be compared with the effect of a 
small part of it, and thus a comparison maybe instituted between 
the mass of the earth and the mass of that part of it. Now, a 
leaden ball was weighed against the earth by comparing the 
effects of each upon a balance of torsion ; the nearness of the 
smaller mass making it produce a sensible effect as compared 

pression of 2gg.2 and 2qq.a' '^^® protuberant matter at the earth's 

equator produces inequalities in the moon's motions, from whence tho 

compression of the earth is found to be 57^.^^; and although the reci- 

procal action of the moon on the protuberant matter at the earth's equa- 
or does not actually give the compression, it proves that it must be 

between — — and -— -. Coincidences so near and so remarkable; aris- 
ing from such different methods, show how nearly the irregular figure 
of the earth has been determined. The inequalties in the motions of 
the moon and earth alhided to are explained in Sections 5 and 11 
'' Connection of Physical Sciences." 



MEAN DENSITY OF THE EARTH. 19 

with that of the larger, for by the laws of attraction the whole earth 
must be considered as collected in its centre ; in this manner a 
value of the mass of the earth was obtained, and, as its volume 
was known, its mean density was found to be 5*675 times greater 
than that of water at the temperature of 62° of Fahrenheit's ther- 
mometer. Now, as that mean density is double that of basalt, 
and more than double that of granite, rocks which undoubt- 
edly emanate from very great depths beneath the surface of the 
earth, it affords another proof of the increase in density towards 
the earth's centre. These experiments were first made by 
Mr. Cavendish and Mitchell, and latterly with much greater 
accuracy by M. Baily, who devoted four years of unremitted 
attention to the accomplishment of this important and difficult 
object. 6 

Although the earth increases in density regularly from the 
surface to the centre, as might naturally be expected from the 
increasing pressure, yet the surface consists of a great variety of 
substances of different densities, some of which occur in amor- 
phous masses ; others are disposed in regular layers or strata, 
either horizontal or inclined at all angles to the horizon. By 
mining, man has penetrated only a very little way ; but by 
reasoning from the dip or inclination of the strata at or near the 
surface, and from other circumstances, he has obtained a pretty 
accurate idea of the structure of our globe to the depth of about 
ten miles. All the substances of which we have any information 
are divided into four classes, distinguished by the manner in 
which they have been formed : namely, — plutonic and volcanic 
rocks, both of igneous origin, though produced under different 
circumstances; aqueous or stratified rocks, entirely due to the 
action of water, as the name implies ; and metamorphic rocks, 
deposited by water, according to the opinion of many eminent 
geologists, and consequently stratified, but subsequently altered 
and crystallized by heat. The aqueous and volcanic rocks are 
formed at the surface of the earth, the plutonic and metamorphic 
at great depths ; but all of them have originated simuUaneously 
during every geological period, and are now in a state of slow 
and constant progress. The antagonist principles of fire and 
water have ever been and still are the cause of the perpetual 
vicissitudes to which the crust of the earth is liable. 

It has been ascertained by observation that the plutonic rocks, 

^ It is clear that the mean density of the earth may be found from 
the attraction of the plumb-line by mountains, or by the irregularity in 
the oscillations of the pendulum, but the torsion balance is a much 
more sensible instrument than either. The density determined by M. 
Reich differs from that found by Mr. Baily by only one twenty-eighth 
part. 



20 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

consisting of the granites and some of the porphyries, were 
formed in the deep and fiery caverns of the earth, of melted 
matter, which crystaUized as it slowly cooled under enormous 
pressure, and was then heaved up in unstratified masses by the 
elastic force of the internal heat even to the tops of highest moun- 
tains, or forced in a semi-fluid state into fissures of the superin- 
cumbent strata, sometimes into the cracks of the previously 
formed granite : for that rock, which constitutes the base of so 
large a portion of the earth's crust, has not been all formed at 
once ; some portions had been solid, while others were yet in a 
liquid state. This class of rocks is completely destitute of fossil 
remains. 

Although granite and the volcanic rocks are both due to the 
action of fire, their nature and position are very different ; gra- 
nite, fused in the interior of the earth, has been cooled and con- 
solidated before coming to the surface ; besides, it generally 
consists of few ingredients, so that it has nearly the same char- 
acter in all countries. But as the volcanic fire rises to the very 
surface of the earth, fusing whatever it meets with, volcanic 
rocks take various forms, not only from the different kinds of 
strata which are melted, but from the different conditions under 
which the liquid matter has been cooled, though most frequently 
on the surface — a circumstance that seems to have had the great- 
est effect on its appearance and structure. Sometimes it approaches 
so nearly to granite that it is difficult to perceive a distinction; at 
other times it becomes glass ; in short, all those massive, unstrati- 
fied, and occasionally columnar rocks, as basalt, greenstone, por- 
phyry, and serpentine, are due to volcanic fires, and are devoid of 
fossil remains. 

There seems scarcely to have been any age of the world in 
which volcanic eruptions have not taken place in some part of 
the globe. Lava has pierced through every description of rocks, 
spread over the surface of those existing at the time, filled their 
crevices, and flowed between their strata. Ever changing its 
place of action, it has burst out at the bottom of the sea as well as 
on dry land. Enormous quantities of scoriee and ashes have been 
ejected from numberless craters, and have formed extensive 
deposits in the sea, in lakes, and on the land, in which are em- 
bedded the remains of the animals and vegetables of the epoch. 
Some of these deposits have become hard rock, others remain in 
a crumbling state ; and as they alternate with the aqueous strata 
of almost every period, they contain the fossils of ail the geologi- 
cal epochs, chiefly fresh and salt water testacese. 

According to a theory now generally adopted, which originated 
with Sir Charles Lyell, whose works are models of philosophical 
investigation, the metamorphic rocks, which consist of gneiss, 



OUTLINE OF GEOLOGY. 21 

micaschist, clay-slate, statuary marble, &c., were formed of the 
sediment of water in regular layers, differing in kind and colour, 
but, having been deposited near the place where plutonic rocks 
were generated, they have been changed by the heat transmitted 
from the fused matter, and, in cooling under heavy pressure and 
at great depths, they have become as highly crystallized as the 
granite itself, without losing their stratified form. An earthy 
stratum has sometimes been changed into a highly crystallized 
rock, to the distance of a quarter of a mile from the point of con- 
tact, by transmitted heat ; and there are instances of dark-coloured 
limestone, full of fossil shells, that has been changed into statuary 
marble from that cause. Such alterations may frequently be seen 
to a small extent on rocks adjacent to a stream of lava. There is 
seldom a trace of organic remains in the metamorphic rocks ; 
their strata are sometimes horizontal, but they are usually tilted 
at all angles to the horizon, and form some of the highest moun- 
tains and most extensive table-lands on the face of the globe. 
Although there is the greatest similarity in the plutonic rocks in 
all parts of the world, they are by no means identical ; they differ 
in colour, and even in ingredients, though these are few. 

Aqueous rocks are all stratified, being the sedimentary depo- 
sits of water. They originate in the wear of the land by rain, 
streams, or the ocean. The debris carried by running water is 
deposited at the bottom of the seas and lakes, where it is consoli- 
dated, and then raised up by subterraneous forces, again to undergo 
the same process after a lapse of time. By the wasting away of 
the land the lower rocks are laid bare, and, as the materials are 
deposited in different places according to their weight, the strata 
are exceedingly varied, but consist chiefly of arenaceous or sand- 
stone rocks, composed of sand, clay, and carbonate of lime. They 
constitute three great classes, which, in an ascending order, are 
the primary and secondary fossiliferous strata and the tertiary for- 
mations. 

The primary fossiliferous strata, the most ancient of all the sedi- 
mentary rocks, consisting of limestone, sandstones, and shales, are 
entirely of marine origin, having been formed far from land at the 
bottom of a very deep ocean ; consequently, they contain the exu- 
viae of marine animals only, and after the lapse of unnumbered 
ages the ripple-marks of the waves are still distinctly visible on 
some of their strata. This series of rocks is subdivided into the 
Cambrian and the upper and lower Silurian systems, on account 
of differences in their fossil remains. 

The Cambrian rocks, sometimes many thousand yards thick, 
are, for the most part, destitute of organic remains, but the Silu- 
rian rocks abound in them more and more as the strata lie higher 
in the series. In the lower Silurian group are the remains of 



22 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

shell-fish, almost all of extinct genera, and the few that have any 
affinity to those alive are of extinct species ; crinoidea, or stone 
lilies, which had been fixed to the rocks like tuHps on their stems, 
are coeval with the earliest inhabitants of the deep; and the trilo- 
bite, a jointed creature of the crab kind, with prominent eyes, are 
almost exclusively confined to the Silurian strata, but the last traces 
of them are found in the coal-measures above. In the upper Silu- 
rian group are abundance of marine shells of almost every order, 
together with crinoidea, vast quantities of corals, and some sea- 
weeds : several fossil sauroid fishes, of extinct genera, but high 
organization, have been found in the highest beds — the only ver- 
tebrated animals that have yet been discovered among the count- 
less profusion of the lower orders of creatures that are entombed 
in the primary fossiliferous strata. The remains of one or more 
land plants, in a very imperfect state, have been found in the Silu- 
rian rocks of North America, which shows that there had been 
land with vegetation at that early period. The type of these plants, 
as well as the size of the shells and the quantity of the coral, indi- 
cate that a uniformly warm temperature had then prevailed over 
the globe. During the Silurian period an ocean covered the 
northern hemisphere, islands and lands of moderate size had just 
begun to rise, and earthquakes, with volcanic eruptions from insular 
and submarine volcanos, were frequent towards its close. 

The secondary fossiliferous strata, which comprise a great geo- 
logical period, and constitute the principal part of the high land 
of Europe, were deposited at the bottom of an ocean, like the pri- 
mary, from the debris of all the others, carried down by water, 
and still bear innumerable tokens of their marine origin, although 
they have for ages formed a part of the dry land. Calcareous rocks 
are more abundant in these strata than in the crystalline, probably 
because the carbonic acid was then, as it still is, driven off from 
the lower strata by the internal heat, and came to the surface as 
gas or in calcareous springs, which either rose in the sea and fur- 
nished materials for shell-fish and coral insects to build their habi- 
tations and form coral-reefs, or deposited their calcareous matter 
on the land in the form of rocks. 

The Devonian or old red sandstone group, in many places 
10,000 feet thick, consisting of strata of dark red and other sand- 
stones, marls, coralline limestones, conglomerates, &c., is the lowest 
of the secondary fossiliferous strata, and forms a link between them 
and the Silurian rocks, by an analogy in their fossil remains. It 
has fossils peculiarly its own, but it has also some shells and corals 
common to the strata both above and below it. There are various 
families of extinct sauroid fishes in this group, some of which were 
gigantic, others had strong bony shields on their heads, and one 
genus, covered with enamelled scales, had appendages like wings. 



OUTLINE OF GEOLOGY. 23 

The shark approaches nearer to some of these ancient fish than 
any other now living. 

During the long period of perfect tranquility that prevailed after 
the Devonian group was deposited, a very warm, moist, and ex- 
tremely equable climate, which extended all over the globe, had 
clothed the islands and lands in the ocean then covering the 
northern hemisphere with exuberant tropical forests and jungles. 
Subsequent inroads of fresh water, or of the sea, or rather partial 
sinkings of the land, had submerged these forests and jungles, 
which, being mixed with layers of sand and mud, had in time 
been consolidated into one mass, and were then either left dry by 
the retreat of the waters or gently raised above their surface. 

These constitute the remarkable group of the carboniferous strata, 
which consists of numberless layers of various substances filled 
with a prodigious quantity of the remains of fossil land-plants, 
intermixed with beds of coal, which is entirely composed of vege- 
table matter. In some cases, the plants appear to have been car- 
ried down by floods, and deposited in estuaries ; but in most 
instances the beauty, delicacy, and sharpness of the impressions 
show that they had grown on the spot where the coal was 
formed. More than 300 fossil plants have been collected from 
the strata were they abound, frequently with their seeds and fruits, 
so that enough remains to show the peculiar nature of this flora, 
whose distinguishing feature is the preponderance of ferns ; among 
these there Avere tree-ferns which must have been 40 or 50 feet 
high. There were also plants resembling the horse-tail tribe, of 
gigantic size, others like the tropical club mosses ; an aquatic plant 
of an extinct family was very abundant, beside many others to 
which we have nothing analogous. Forest-trees of great magni- 
tude, of the pine and fir tribes, flourished at that period. The 
remains of an extinct araucaria, one of the largest of the pine 
family, have been found in the British coal-fields ; the existing 
species now grow in very warm countries ; a few rare instances 
occur of grasses, palms, and liliaceous plants. The botanical dis- 
tricts were very extensive when the coal-plants were growing, for 
the species are nearly identical throughout the coal-fields of Europe 
and America. From the extent of the ocean, the insular structure 
of the land, the profusion of ferns and fir-trees, and the warm, 
moist, and equable climate, the northern hemisphere during the 
formation of the coal strata is thought to have borne a strong re- 
semblance to the South Pacific, with its fern and fir clothed lands 
of New Zealand, Kerguelen islands, and others. 

The animal remains of this period are in the mountain limestone, 
a rock occasionally 900 feet thick, which in some instances lies 
beneath the coal-measures, and sometimes alternates with the shale 
and sandstone. They consist of crinoidea and marine testaceae, 



24 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

among which the size of the chambered shells, as well as that of the 
corals, shows that the ocean was very warm at that time, even in 
the high northern latitudes. The footsteps of a very large reptile 
of the frog tribe have been found on some of the carboniferous 
strata of North America. 

The coal strata have been very much broken and deranged in 
many places by earthquakes, which frequently occurred during 
the secondary fossiliferous period, and from time to time raised 
islands and land from the deep. However, these and all other 
changes that have taken place on the earth have been gradual and 
partial, whether brought about by fire or water. The older rocks 
are more shattered by earthquakes than the newer, because the 
movement came from below ; but these convulsions have never 
extended all over the earth at the same time — they have always 
been local : for example, the Silurian strata have been dislocated 
and tossed in Britain, while a vast area in the south of Sweden 
and Russia still retains a horizontal position. There is no proof 
that any mountain-chain has ever been raised at once; on the con- 
trary, the elevation has always been produced by a long-continued 
and reiterated succession of internal convulsions with intervals of 
repose. In many instances the land has risen up or sunk down 
by an imperceptible equable motion continued for ages, while in 
other places the surface of the earth has remained stationary for 
long geological periods. 

The magnesian limestone, or permian formation, comes imme- 
diately above the coal-measures, and consists of breccias or con- 
glomerates, gypsum, sandstone, marl, &c. ; but its distinguishing 
feature is a yellow limestone rock, containing carbonate of mag- 
nesia, which often takes a granular texture, and is then known as 
dolomite. The permian formation has a fossil flora and fauna 
peculiar to itself, mingled with those of the coal strata. Here 
the remnant of an earlier creation gradually tends to its final ex- 
tinction, and a new one begins to appear. The flora is, in many 
instances, specifically the same with that in the coal strata below. 
Certain fish are also common to the two, which never appear again. 
They belong to a race universal in the early geological periods, 
and bear a strong resemblance to saurian reptiles. A small num- 
ber of existing genera only, such as the shark and sturgeon, make 
some approach to the structure of these ancient inhabitants of the 
waters. The new creation is marked by the introduction of two 
species of saurian reptiles ; the fossil remains of one have been 
found in the magnesian limestone in England, and those of the 
other in a corresponding formation in Germany. They are the 
earliest members of a family which was to have dominion on the 
land and water for ages. 

A series of red marls, rock-salt, and sandstones, which have 



OUTLINE OF GEOLOGY. 25 

arisen from the disintegration of rnetamorphic slates and porphy- 
ritic trap, containing oxide of iron, and known as the trias or new- 
red sandstone system, lies above the magnesian limestone. In 
England this formation is particularly rich in rocksalt, which, with 
layers of gypsum and marl, is sometimes 600 feet thick ; but in 
this country the muschelkalk, a peculiar kind of shell limestone, 
is wanting, which in Germany is so remarkable for the quantity 
of organic remains. At this time creatures like frogs, of enormous 
dimensions, had been frequent, as they have left their footsteps on 
what must then have been a soft shore. Forty-seven genera of 
fossil remains have been found in the trias in Germany, consisting 
of shells, cartilaginous fish, encrinites, &c., all distinct in species, 
and many distinct in genera, from the organic fossils of the mag- 
nesian limestone below, and also from those entombed in the strata 
above. 

During a long period of tranquility the oolite or Jurassic group 
was next deposited in a sea of variable depth, and consists of sands, 
sandstones, marls, clays, and limestone. At this time there was 
a complete change in the aqueous deposits all over Europe. The 
red iron-stained arenaceous rocks, the black coal, and dark strata, 
were succeeded by light-blue clays, pale-yellow limestones, and, 
lastly, white chalk. The water that deposited the strata must have 
been highly charged with carbonate of lime, since few of the for- 
mations of that period are without calcareous matter, and calcare- 
ous rocks were formed to a prodigious extent throughout Europe; 
the Pyrenees, Alps, Apennines, and Balkan abound in them; and 
the Jura mountains, which have given their name to the series, 
are formed of them. The European ocean then teemed with ani- 
mal life ; whole beds consist almost entirely of marine shells and 
corals. Belemnites and ammonites, from an inch in diameter to 
the size of a cart-wheel, are entombed by myriads in the strata : 
whole forests of that beautiful zoophyte the stone-lily flourished on 
the surface of the oolite, then under the waters ; and the encrinite, 
one of the same genus, is embedded in millions in the enchorial 
shell-marble, which occupies such extensive tracts in Europe. 
Fossil fish are numerous in these strata, but different from those of 
the coal series, the permian formation, and trias: not one genus of 
the fish of this period is now in existence. The newly-raised 
islands and lands were clothed with vegetation like that of the large 
islands of the intertropical archipelagos of the present day, which, 
though less rich than during the carboniferous period, still indi- 
cates a very moist and warm climate. Ferns were less abundant, 
and they were associated with various genera and species of the 
cicadeag, which had grown on the southern coast of England, and 
in other parts of northern Europe, congeners of the present cycas 
and zamia of the tropics. These plants had been very numerous, 
3 



26 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

and the pandanse, or screw-pine, the first tenant of the new lands 
in ancient and modern times, is a family found in a fossil state in 
the inferior oolite of England, which was but just rising from the 
deep at that time. The species now flourishing grows only on the 
coasts of such coral islands in the Pacific as have recently emerged 
from the waves. In the upper strata of this group, however, the 
confervas and monocotyledonous plants become more rare — an 
indication of a change of climate. 

The new lands that were scattered on the ocean of the oolite 
period were drained by rivers, and inhabited by huge crocodilps 
and saurian reptiles of gigantic size, mosily of extinct genera. The 
crocodiles come nearest to modern reptiles ; but the others, though 
bearing a remote similitude in general structure to living forms, 
were quite anomalous, combining in one the structure of various 
distinct creatures, and so monstrous that they must have been more 
like the visions of a troubled dream than things of real existence ; 
yet in organization a few of them came nearer to the type of living 
mammalia than any existing reptiles do. Some of these had lived 
in rivers, others in the ocean — some were inhabitants of the land, 
others were amphibious ; and the various species of one genus 
even had wings like a bat, and fed on insects. There were both 
herbivorous and predaceous saurians ; and from their size and 
strength they must have been formidable enemies. Besides, the 
numbers deposited are so great, that they must have swarmed for 
ages in the estuaries and shallow seas of the period, especially in 
the lias, a marine stratum of clay, the lowest of the oolite series. 
They gradually declined towards the end of the secondary fossili- 
ferous epoch; but as a class they lived in all subsequent eras, and 
still exist in tropical countries, although the species are very dif- 
ferent from their ancient congeners. Tortoises of various kinds 
were contemporary with the saurians, also a family that still exists. 
In the Stonefield slate, a stratum of the lower oolite group, there 
are the remains of insects, and the bones of two small quadrupeds 
have been found there belonging to the marsupial tribe, such as 
the opossum— a very remarkable circumstance, because that family 
of animals at the present time is confined to New Holland, South 
America, and as far north as Pennsylvania at least. The great 
changes in animal life during this period were indications of the 
successive alterations that had taken place on the earth's surface. 

The cretaceous strata follow the oolite in ascending order, con- 
sisting of clay, green and iron sands, blue limestone, and chalk, 
probably formed of the decay of coral and shells, which predomi- 
nates so much in England and other parts of Europe, that it has 
given the name and its peculiar feature to the whole group. It is, 
however, by no means universal ; the chalk is wanting in many 
parts of the world where the other strata of this series prevail, 



OUTLINE OF GEOLOGY. 27 

and then their connection with the group can only be ascertained 
by the identity of their fossil remains. With the exception of 
some beds of coal among the oolitic series, the Wealden clay, the 
lowest of the cretaceous group in England, is the only fresh-water 
formation, and the tropical character of its flora shows that the 
climate was still very warm. Plants allied to the zamias and 
cycades of our tropical regions, many ferns and pines of the 
genus araucaria, characterized its vegetation, and the upright 
stems of a fossil forest at Portland show that it had been covered 
with trees. It was inhabited by tortoises approaching to famihes 
now living in warm countries, and saurian reptiles of five different 
genera swarmed in the lakes and estuaries. This clay contains 
fresh-water shells and fish of the carp kind. The Wealden clay 
is one of the various instances of the subsidence of land which 
took place during this period. 

The cretaceous strata above our Wealden clay are full of marine 
exuviae. There are vast tracts of sand in Northern Europe, and 
many very extensive tracts of chalk ; but in the southern part of 
the Continent the cretaceous rocks assume a different character. 
There and elsewhere extensive limestone rocks, filled with very 
peculiar shells, show that, when the cretaceous strata were 
forming, an ocean extended from the Atlantic into Asia, which 
covered the south of France, all Southern Europe, part of Syria, 
the isles of the iEgean Sea, the coasts of Thrace and the Troad. 
The remains of turtles have been found in the cretaceous group, 
quantities of coral, and abundance of shells of extinct species ; 
some of the older kinds still existed, new ones were introduced, 
and some of the most minute species of microscopic shells, which 
constitute a large portion of the chalk, are supposed to be the 
same with creatures now alive, the first instance of identity of 
species in the ancient and modern creation. An approximation 
to recent times is to be observed also in the arrangement of 
organized nature, since at this early period, and even in the 
Silurian and oolitic epochs, the marine fauna was divided, as 
now, into distinct geographical provinces. The great saurians 
were on the decline, and many of them were found no more, but 
a gigantic creature, intermediate between the monitor and iguana, 
lived at this period. From the permian group to the chalk inclu- 
sive, only two instances of fossil birds occur, one in a chalk deposit 
in the Swiss Alps, and the other a kind of albatross in the chalk 
in England ; in North America, however, the foot-marks of a 
variety of birds have been found in the strata between the coal 
and lias, some of which are larger than those of the ostrich. 

An immense geological cycle elapsed between the termination 
of the secondary fossihferous strata and the beginning of the ter- 
tiary. With the latter a new order of things commenced, ap- 



28 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

proaching more closely to the actual state of the globe. During 
the tertiary formation the same causes under new circumstances 
produced an infinite variety in the order and kind of the strata, 
accompanied by a corresponding change in the animal and vege- 
table life. The old creation, which had nothing in common with 
the existing order of things, had passed away and given place to 
one more nearly approaching to that which now prevails. Among 
the myriads of beings that inhabited the earth and the ocean during 
the secondary fossiJiferous epoch, scarcely one species is to be 
found in the tertiary. Two planets could hardly differ more in 
their natural productions. This break in the law of continuity is 
the more remarkable, as hitherto some of the newly-creaied 
animals were always introduced before the older were extin- 
guished. The circumstances and climate suited to the one became 
more and more unfit for the other, which consequently perished 
gradually, while their successors increased. It is possible that, as 
observations become more extended, this hiatus maybe filled up. 

The series of rocks, from the granite to the end of the secondary 
fossiliferous strata, taken as a whole, constitute the solid crust of 
the globe, and in that sense are universally diffused over the 
earth's surface. The tertiary strata occupy the hollows formed 
in this crust, whether by subterraneous movements, by lakes, or 
denudation by water, as in the estuaries of rivers, and conse- 
quently occur in irregular tracts, often, however, of prodigious 
thickness and extent. Indeed, they seem to have been as widely 
developed as any other formation, though time has been wanting 
to bring them into view. 

The innumerable basins and hollows with which the continents 
and larger islands had been indented for ages after the termina- 
tion of the secondary fossiliferous series had sometimes been fresh- 
water lakes, and at other times inundated by the sea ; conse- 
quently, the deposits which took place during these changes 
alternately contain the spoils of terrestrial and marine animals. 
The frequent intrusion of volcanic strata among the tertiary for- 
mations shows that, in Europe, the earth had. been in a very 
disturbed state, and that these repeated vicissitudes had been 
occasioned by elevations and depressions of the soil, as well as 
by the action of w^ater. 

There are three distinct groups in these strata : the lowest 
tertiary or Eocene group, so called by Sir Charles Lyell, because, 
among the myriads of fossil shell-fish it contains, very few are 
identical with those now living; the Miocene, or middle group, 
has a greater number of the exuvias of existing species of shells ; 
and the Pleiocene, or upper tertiary group, still more. Though 
frequently heaved up to great elevations on the flanks of the 
mountain-chains, as, for example, on the Alps and Apennines, 



OUTLINE OF GEOLOGY. 29 

by far the greater part of the tertiary strata maintain their ori- 
ginal horizonial position in the very places where they were 
i'ormed. Immense insulated deposits of this kind are to be met 
with all over the world ; Europe abounds with them, London, 
Paris, and Vienna stand on such basins, and they cover immense 
tracts both in North and South America. 

The monstrous reptiles had mostly disappeared, and the mam- 
malia now took possession of the earth, of forms scarcely less 
anomalous than their predecessors, though approaching more 
nearly to those now living. 

Numerous species of extinct animals that lived during the 
earliest or Eocene period have been found in various parts of the 
world, especially in the Paris basin, of the order of Pachyder- 
mata, to the greater number of which we have nothing analo- 
gous ; they were mostly herbivorous quadrupeds, which had fre- 
quented the borders of the rivers and lakes that covered the 
greater part of Europe at that time. This is the more extraor- 
dinary, as existing animals most similar to these, the tapirs for 
instance, are confined to the torrid zone. These creatures were 
widely diffused, and some of them were associated with genera 
still existing, though of totally different species ; such as animals 
allied to the racoon and dormouse, the ox, bear, deer, the fox, the 
dog, and others. Although these quadrupeds differ so widely 
from those of the present day, the same proportion existed then 
as now between the carnivorous and herbivorous genera. The 
spoils of marine mammalia of this period have also been found, 
sometimes of great elevations above the sea, all of extinct species, 
and some of these cetacea were of huge size. This marvellous 
change of the creative power was not confined to the earth and 
the ocean ; the air also was now occupied by many extinct races 
of birds alHed to the owl, buzzard, quail, curlew, &c. The climate 
must still have been warmer than at present, from the remains of 
land and sea plants found in high latitudes. Even in England, 
bones of the opossum, monkey, and boa have been discovered, 
all animals of w^arm countries, besides fossil sword and saw fish, 
both of genera foreign to the British seas. 

During the Miocene period, new amphibious quadrupeds were 
associated with the old, of which the deinotherium is the most 
characteristic and much the largest of the mammalia yet found, 
far surpassing the largest elephant in size, of a singular form, and 
unknown nature. 

The palceotherium was of this period, and also the mastodon, 
both of large dimensions. Various families, and even genera, of 
quadrupeds now existing were associated with these extraordinary 
creatures, though of extinct species, such as the elephant, rhino- 
ceros, hippopotamus, tapir, horse, bear, wolf, hytena, weasel, 
3* 



30 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

beaver, ox, buffalo, deer, &c. ; and also marine mammalia, as 
dolphins, sea-calves, walruses, and lamantines. Indeed, in the 
constant increase of animal life manifested throughout^ the whole 
of the tertiary strata, the forms approach nearer to living species 
as their remains lie high in the series. 

In the older Pleiocene period some of the large amphibious 
quadrupeds, and other genera of mammalia of the earlier tertiary- 
periods, appear no more ; but there were the mastodon, and the 
Elephas primigenius or mammoth, some species of which, of 
prodigious size, were associated with numerous quadrupeds of 
existing genera, but lost species. Extinct species of almost all 
the quadrupeds now alive seem to have inhabited the earth at 
that time ; their bones have been discovered in caverns ; they 
were embedded in the breccias and in most of the strata of that 
epoch — as the hippopotamus, rhinoceros, elephant, horse, bear, 
wolf, water-rat, hyaena, and various birds. It is remarkable that 
in the caverns of Australia the fossil bones all belong to extinct 
species of gigantic kangaroos and wombats, animals belonging to 
the marsupial family, which are so peculiarly the inhabitants of 
that country at the present day, but of diminished size. The 
newer Pleiocene strata show that the same analogy existed be- 
tween the extinct and recent mammalia of South America, 
which, like their living congeners, as far as we know, belonged 
to that continent alone ; for the fossil remains, quite different from 
those in the old world, are of animals of the same families with 
the sloths, anteaters, and armadilioes which now inhabit that 
country, but of vastly superior size and difllirent species. In 
fact, there were giants in the land in those days. Were change 
of species possible, one might almost fancy that these countries 
had escaped the wreck of time, and that their inhabitants had 
pined and dwindled under the change of circumstances. The 
megatherium and Equus curvidens, or extinct horse, had so vast 
a range in America, that, while Sir Charles Lyell collected their 
bones in Georgia in 83° N. latitude, Mr. Darwin brought them 
from the corresponding latitude in South America. The Equus 
curvidens differed as much from the living horse as the quagga 
or zebra does, and the European fossil horse is also probably a 
distinct and lost species. 

A comparison of the fossil remains with the living forms has 
shown the analogy between these beings of the ancient world and 
those that now people the earth ; and the greatest triumph of the 
geologist is the certainty with which he can decide upon the 
nature of animals that have been extinct for thousands of years, 
from a few bones entombed on the earth's surface. Baron Cuvier 
will ever be celebrated as the founder of this branch of compara- 
tive anatomy, and which Professor Owen has brought to the high- 



OUTLINE OF GEOLOGY. 31 

est perfection. Among many discoveries, he has found, by the 
most minute microscopic observation, that the structure of the 
tissue of which teeth are formed is different in different classes of 
animals, and that the species can in many instances be determined 
from the fragment of a tooth. A small portion of a bone enabled 
him to decide on the nature of an extinct race of birds, and the 
subsequent discovery of the whole skeleton confirmed the accu- 
racy of this determination. 

The greater part of the land in the northern hemisphere was 
elevated above the deep during the tertiary period, and such lands 
as already existed acquired additional height ; consequently the 
climate, which had previously been tropical, became gradually 
colder, for an increase of land, which raises the temperature be- 
tween the tropics, has exactly the contrary effects in higher lati- 
tudes. Hence, excessive cold prevailed during the latter part of 
the Pleiocene period, and a great part of the European continent 
was covered by an ocean full of floating ice, not unlike that seen 
at this day off" the north-eastern coast of America.'' 

During the latter part of the Pleiocene period, however, the 
bed of that glacial ocean rose partiall}^ and after many vicissi- 
tudes the European continent assumed nearly the form it now 
bears. There is every reason to believe that the glacial sea 
extended also over great portions of the arctic lands of Asia and 
America. Old forms of animal and vegetable hfe were destroyed 
by these alterations in the surface of the earth, and the conse- 
quent change of temperature ; and when, in the progress of the 
Pleiocene period, the mountain-tops appeared as islands above the 
water, they were clothed with the flora and peopled by the ani- 
mals they still retain ; and new forms were added as the land 
rose and became dry and fitted to receive and maintain the races 
of animals now alive, all of which had possession of the earth for 
ages prior to the historical or human period. Some of the extinct 
animals had long resisted the great vicissitudes of the times ; of 
these the mammoth or Elephas primigenius, whose fossil remains 
are found all over Europe, Asia, and America, but especially in 
the gelid soil of Siberia, alone outlived its associates, the last 
remnant of a former world. In two or three instances this ani- 
mal has been discovered entire, entombed in frozen mud, with its 

J If a line be drawn from the north-eastern coast of North America 
within the limit of floating ice, and if it be continued across the southern 
half of Ireland and England, and prolonged eastward so as to strike 
against the Ural mountains^ it wiU mark the bonndery of the European 
portion of the Glacial Sea. It submerged part of Russia to the depth of 
1000 feet. — Essay on the British Fauna and Flora, by Professor E. 
Forbes, in the '• Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Great Britain," 
vol. i. 



32 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY, 

hair and its flesh so fresh that wolves and dogs fed upon it. The 
globe of the eye of one found by M.Middendorf at Tas, between the 
rivers Oby and Jenesei, was so perfect that it is now preserved 
in the museum at Moscow. It has been supposed that, as the 
Siberian rivers flow for hundreds-of miles from the southern part 
of the country to the Arctic Ocean, these elephants might have 
been drowned by floods while browsing in the milder regions, 
and that their bodies were carried down by the rivers and 
embedded in mud, and frozen before they had time to decay. 
Mr. Darwin has suggested that, if the chmate of Siberia has at 
any time been similar to that of the high latitudes of South Ame- 
rica, where the line of perpetual snow in the Andes, and its sud- 
den flexure in Southern Chile, come close to a nearly tropical 
vegetation, such a vegetation may have prevailed south of the 
frozen regions in Siberia, and, consequently, the bodies of ani- 
mals entombed a few feet below the icy surface might be pre- 
served for ages. On the other hand, although the congeners of 
this animal are now inhabitants of the torrid zone, they may have 
been able to endure the cold of a Siberian winter, for Baron Cuvier 
found that this animal differed as much from the Uving elephant 
as the horse does from the ass. Mr. Darwin has shown that the 
supply of food in summer was probably sufficient, since the quan- 
tity requisite for the maintenance of the larger animals is by no 
means in proportion to their bulk, or it may have migrated to a 
more genial climate in the colder months. 

Shell-fish seem to have been more able to endure all the great 
geological changes than any of their organic associates, but they 
show a constant approximation to modern species during the pro- 
gress of the tertiary period. The whole of these strata contain 
enormous quantities of shells of extinct species ; in the oldest, three 
and a half per cent, of the shells are identical with species now 
existing, while on the uppermost strata of this geological period 
there are not less than from ninety to ninety-five in a hundred 
identical with those now alive. 

Of all the fossil fishes, from the Silurian strata to the end of the 
tertiary, scarcely one is specificially the same with living forms : 
the Mallotus villosus,or captan, of the salmon family, is an excep- 
tion, and perhaps a few others of the most recent of these periods. 
In the Eocene strata one-third belong to extinct genera. 

Under the vegetable mould in every country there is a stratum 
of loose sand, gravel, and mud, lying upon the subjacent rocks, 
often of great thickness, called alluvium, which in the high lati- 
tudes of North America and Europe is mixed with enormous frag- 
ments of rock, sometimes angular and sometimes rounded and 
water-worrr, which have been transported hundreds of miles from 
their origin. It is there known as the Boulder formation, or 



OUTLINE OF GEOLOGY. 33 

Northern Drift, because, from the identity of the boulders with the 
rocks of the northern mountains, they evidently have come from 
them, and their size becomes less as the distance increases. In 
Russia there are blocks of great magnitude that have been carried 
800 and even 1000 miles south-east from their origin in the Scan- 
dinavian range. There is much reason to believe that such 
masses, enormous as they are, have been transported by ice-bergs, 
and deposited when the northern parts of the continents were 
covered by the glacial sea, by which part of Russia was sub- 
merged to the depth of at least 1000 feet. The same process is 
now in progress in the high southern latitudes, where icebergs 
have been met with covered with fragments of rock and boulders.^ 

The last manifestation of creative power, with few exceptions, 
differs specifically from all that preceded it ; the recent strata con- 
tain only the exuviae of animals now living, often mixed with the 
works of man. 

The solid earth thus tells us of mountains washed down into 
the sea with their forests and inhabitants ; of lands raised from 
the bottom of the ocean loaded with the accumulated spoils of 
centuries ; of torrents of water and torrents of fire. In the ordi- 
nances of the heavens no voice declares a beginning, no sign points 
to an end ; in the bosom of the earth, however the dawn of life 
appears, the time is obscurely marked when first living things 
moved in the waters, when the first plants clothed the land. 
There we see that during ages of tranquillity the solid rock was 
forming at the bottom of the ocean, that 'during ages it was tossed 
and riven by fire and earthquake. What years must have gone 
by since that ocean flowed which has left its ripple-marks on the 
sand, now a solid mass on the mountain — since those unknown 
creatures left their foot-prints on the shore, now fixed by time on 
the rock for ever! time, which man measures by days and years, 
nature measures by thousands of centuries. 

The thickness of the fossiliferous strata up to the end of the 
tertiary formation has been estimated at about seven or eight 
miles ; so that the time requisite for their deposition must have 
been immense. Every river carries down mud, sand, or gravel, 
to the sea : the Ganges brings more than 700,000 cubic feet of 
mud every hour, the Yellow River in China 2,000,000,^ and the 

^ Sir James Ross and Captain Wilkes met with icebergs covered 
with mud and stones in the antarctic seas, and even in 66° 5' lat. One 
block seen by Sir James Ross was estimated to weigh many tons. — 
Antarctic Vovacfes. — [Narrative of United States Exploring Expedition. 
By Charles Wilkes, U.S.N.]. 

^ Account of the Ganges and Brahmapootra, by Major Rennell. — 
^^Phil. Trans./' 1781. Sir George Staunton's Embassy to China. Elie 
de Beaumont, Lemons de Geologic, 1 vol', 8vo. The latter work con- 
tains a very elaborate essay on alluvial deposits by rivers, &c. 



34 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

Mississippi still more ; yet, notwithstanding these great deposits, 
the Italian hydrographer Manfredi has estimated that, if the sedi- 
ment of all the rivers on the globe were spread equally over the 
bottom of the ocean, it would require 1000 years to raise its bed 
one foot, so that at that rate it would require 3,960,000 years to 
raise the bed of the ocean alone to a height nearly equal to the 
thickness of the fossiliferous strata, or seven miles and a half, not 
taking account of the waste of the coasts by the sea itself: but if 
the whole globe be considered, instead of the bottom of the sea 
only, the time would be nearly four times as great, even sup- 
posing as much alluvium to be deposited uniformly both with 
regard to time and place, which it never is. Besides, in various 
places the strata have been more than once carried to the bottom 
of the ocean, and again raised above its surface by subterranean 
fires after many ages, so that the whole period from the beginning 
of the primary fossiliferous strata to the present day must be 
great beyond calculation, and only bears comparison with the 
astronomical cycles, as might naturally be expected, the earth 
being without doubt of the same antiquity with the other bodies 
of the solar system. What then shall we say if the time be 
included which the granitic, metamorphic, and recent series oc- 
cupied in forming ? These great periods of time correspond 
wonderfully with the gradual increase of animal life and the 
successive creation and extinction of numberless orders of 
being, and with the incredible quantity of organic remains 
buried in the crust of the earth in every country on the face of 
the globe. 

Every great geological change in the nature of the strata was 
accompanied by the introduction of a new race of beings, and the 
gradual extinction of those that had previously existed, their 
structure and habits being no longer fitted for the new circum- 
stances in which these changes had placed them. The change, 
however, never was abrupt ; and it may be observed that there 
is no proof of progressive development of species by generation 
from a low to a high organization, for animals and plants of high 
organization appeared among the earliest of their kind, yet 
throughout the whole, the gradual approach to living and more 
perfect forms is undoubted, not by change of species, but by 
increasing similarity of type. 

The geographical distribution of animated beings was much 
more extensive in the ancient seas and land than in latter times. 
In very remote ages the same animal inhabited the most distant 
parts of the sea : the corallines built from the equator to within 
ten or fifteen degrees of the pole ; and previous to the formation 
of the carboniferous strata there appears to have been even a 
greater uniformit}'- in the vegetable than in the animal world, 



OUTLINE OF GEOLOGY. 35 

though New Holland had formed even then a peculiar district, 
supposing the coal in that country to be of the same epoch as in 
Europe and America ; but as the strata became more varied, spe- 
cies were less widely diffused. Some of the saurians were inhabi- 
tants of both the Old and New World, while others lived in the 
latter only. During the tertiary period, the animals of Australia 
and America differed nearly as much from those of Europe as 
they do at the present day. The world was then, as now, divided 
into great physical regions, each inhabited by a peculiar race of 
animals ; and even the different species of mollusca of the same 
sea were confined to certain shores. Of 405 species of shell-fish 
which inhabited the Atlantic Ocean during the early and middle 
parts of the tertiary period, only 12 were common to the Ameri- 
can and European coasts. In fact, the divisions of the animal 
and vegetable creation into geographical districts had been in the 
latter periods contemporaneous with the rise of the land, each por- 
tion of which, as it rose above the deep, had been clothed with a 
vegetation and peopled with creatures suited to its position with 
regard to the equator, and to the existing circumstances of the 
globe ; and the marine creatures had, no doubt, been divided into 
districts at the same periods, because the bed of the ocean had 
been subject to similar changes. 

The quantity of fossil remains is so great that, with the excep- 
tion of the metals and some of the primary rocks, probably not a 
particle of matter exists on the surface of the earth that has not at 
some time formed part of a living creature. Since the commence- 
ment of animated existence, zoophytes have built coral reefs 
extending hundreds of miles, and mountains of limestone are full 
of their remains all over the globe. Mines of shells are worked 
to make lime; ranges of hills and rocks, many hundred feet thick, 
are almost entirely composed of them, and they abound in every 
mountain-chain throughout the earth. The prodigious quantity 
of microscopic shells discovered by M. Ehrenberg is still more 
astonishing; shells not larger than a grain of sand form entire 
mountains ; a great portion of the hills of San Casciano, in Tus- 
cany, consist of chambered shells so minute that Signer Soldani 
collected 10,454 of them from one ounce of stone. Chalk is often 
almost entirely composed of them. Tripoli, a fine powder long 
in use for pohshing metals, is also almost wholly composed of 
shells which owe their polishing property to their siliceous coats; 
and there are even hills of great extent consisting of this sub- 
stance, the debris of an infinite variety of microscopic insects- 

The facility with which many clays and slates are split is owing, 
in some instances, to layers of minute shells. Fossil fish are 
found in all parts of the world, and in all the fossiliferous strata, 
with the exception of some of the lowest, but each great geological 
period had species of fish peculiar to itself. 



36 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

The remains of the great saurfans are innumerable ; those of 
extinct quadrupeds are very numerous ; but there is no circum- 
stance in the whole science of fossil geology more remarkable 
than the inexhaustible multitudes of fossil elephants that are found 
in Siberia. Their tusks have been an object of traffic in ivory 
for centuries, and in some places they have been in such pro- 
digious quantities, that the ground is tainted with the smell of 
animal matter. Their huge skeletons are found from the frontier 
of Europe through all Northern Asia to its extreme eastern point, 
and from the foot of the Altai mountains to the shores of the 
Frozen Ocean, a surface equal in extent to the whole of Europe. 
Some islands in the Arctic Sea, as, for instance, the first of the 
Lachow group, are chiefly composed of their remains, mixed 
with the bones of various other animals of living genera, but 
extinct species.^° 

Equally wonderful is the quantity of fossil plants that still re- 
main, if it be considered that, from the frail nature of many vegeta- 
ble substances, multitudes must have perished without leaving a 
trace behind. The vegetation that covered the terrestrial part of 
the globe previous to the formation of the carboniferous strata had 
far surpassed in exuberance the rankest tropical jungles. There 
are many coal-fields of great extent in various parts of the earth, 
especially in North America, where that of Pittsburg occupies an 
area of about 14,000 square miles, and that in the Illinois is not 
much inferior to the area of all England." 

As coal is entirely a vegetable substance, some idea may be 
formed of the richness of the ancient flora: in latter times it was 
less exuberant, and never has again been so luxuriant, probably 
on account of the decrease of temperature during the deposition 
of the tertiary strata, and in the glacial period which immediately 
preceded the creation of the present tribes of plants and animals. 
Even after their introduction the temperature must have been 
very low, but by subsequent changes in the distribution of the sea 
and land the cold was gradually mitigated, till at last the climate 
of the northern hemisphere became what it now is. 

Such is the marvellous history laid open to us on the earth's 
surface. Surely it is not the heavens only that declare the glory 
of God — the earth also proclaims His handiwork '.^^ 

^° Lieut. Anjou's Polar Voyage. 

[11 See Statistics of Coal. i3y Richard Cowling Taylor. Philadel- 
phia, 1848.] 

12 The author's geological information rests on the authority of those dis- 
tinguished authors Avhose works are in the hands of every one, namely, 
Baron Cuvier, Sir Charles Lyell, Sir Roderick Murchison, Sir Henry de 
la Beche, Professor Owen^ and the Memoirs of the Geological Society. 



FORCES THAT RAISED THE CONTINENT. 37 



CHAPTER 11. 

Direction of the Forces that raised the Continents — Proportion of Land 
and Water — Size of the Continents and Islands — Outline of the 
" Land — Extent of Coasts, and proportion they bear to the Areas of 
the Continents — Elevation of the Continents — Forms of Mountains — 
Forms of Rocks — Connection between Physical Geography of Coun- 
tries and their Geological Structure — Contemporaneous Upheaval of 
parallel Mountain Chains — Parallelism of Mineral Veins or Fissures — 
Mr. Hopkins's Theory of Fissures — Parallel Chains similar in Struc- 
ture — Interruptions in Continents and Mountain Chains — Form of 
the Great Continent — The High Lands of the Great Continent — The 
Atlas, Spanish, French, and German Mountains — The Alps, Balkan^ 
and Apennines — Glaciers — Geological Notice. 

At the end of the tertiary period the earth was much in the same 
state as it is at present with regard to the distribution of land and 
water. The preponderance of land in the northern hemisphere 
indicates a prodigious accumulation of internal energy under 
these latitudes at a very remote geological period. The forces 
that raised the two great continents above the deep, when viewed 
on a wide scale, must evidently have acted at right angles to one 
another, nearly parallel to the equator in the old continent, and in 
the direction of the meridian in the new; yet the structure of the 
opposite coasts of the Atlantic points at some connection between 
the two. 

The mountains, from their rude and shattered condition, bear 
testimony to repeated violent convulsions similar to modern earth- 
quakes ; while the high table-lands, and that succession of terraces 
by which the continents sink down from their mountain-ranges to 
the plains, to the ocean, and even below it, show also that the 
land must have been heaved up occasionally by slow and gentle 
pressure, such as appears now to be gradually elevating the coast 
of Scandinavia and many other parts of the earth. The periods 
in which these majestic operations were effected must have been 
incalculable, since the dry land occupies an area of nearly 
38,000,000 of square miles. 

The ocean covers nearly three-fourths of the surface of the 
globe, but the distribution is very unequal, whether it be con- 
sidered with regard to the northern and southern hemispheres, 
or the eastern and western. Independently of Victoria Land, 
whose extent is unknown, the quantity of land in the northern 
4 



^38 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

hemisphere is three times greater than in the southern. In the 
latter it occupies only one-sixteenth of the space between the 
Antartic Circle and the thirtieth parallel of south latitude, while 
between the corresponding parallels in the northern hemisphere 
the extent of land and water is nearly equal. If the globe be 
divided into two hemispheres by a meridian passing through the 
island of TenerifFe, the land will be found to predominate greatly 
on the eastern side of that line, and the water on the western. In 
consequence of the very unequal arrangement of the solid and 
liquid portions of the surface of the earth, England is nearly in 
the centre of the greatest mass of land, and its antipode, the island 
of New Zealand, is in the centre of the greatest mass of water; so 
that a person raised above Falmouth, which is almost the central 
point, till he could perceive a complete hemisphere, would see 
the greatest possible expanse of land, while, were he elevated to 
the same height above New Zealand, he would see the greatest 
possible extent of ocean. In fact, only one twenty-seventh of the 
land has land directly opposite to it in the opposite hemisphere, 
and under the equator five-sixths of the circumference of the globe 
is water. It must, however, be observed that there is still an 
unexplored region within the Antartic Circle more than twice the 
size of Europe, and of the north polar basin we know nothing. 
With regard to the land alone, the great continent has an area of 
about 24,000,000 square miles, while the extent of America is 
1 1 ,000,000, and that of Australia with its islands scarcely 3,000,000. 
Africa is more than three times the size of Europe, and Asia is 
more than four times as large. The extent of the continents is 
twenty-three times greater than that of all the islands taken 
together.^3 

Of the polar lands Httle is known. Greenland probably is part 
of a continent, the domain of perpetual snow; and the recent dis- 
covery of so extensive a mass of high volcanic land near the south 
pole is an important event in the history of physical science, 
though the stern severity of the climate must for ever render it 
unfit for the abode of animated beings, or even for the support of 
vegetable life. It seems to form a counterpoise to the preponder- 
ance of dry land in the northern hemisphere. There is something 
sublime in the contemplation of these lofty and unapproachable 
regions — the awful realm of ever-during ice and perpetural fire, 

^^ The proportions of land to water referred to in the text were 
estimated by Mr. Gardner. According to his computation, the extent 
of land is about 37,673.000 square British miles, independently of Vic- 
toria Continent [discovered by Charles Wilkes, U. S. N.] ; and the sea 
occupies 110,849,000. Hence, the land is to the sea as 1 to 4 nearly. 
The unexplored region within the Arctic Circle is about 7^620,000 
square miles. 



OUTLINE OF THE LAND. 39. 

whose year consists of one day and one night. The strange and 
terrible symmetry in the nature of the lands within the polar 
circles, whose limits are to us a blank, where the antagonist 
principles of cold and heat meet in their utmost intensity, fills the 
mind with that awe which arises from the idea of the unknown 
and the indefinite. 

The tendency of the land to assume a peninsular form is very 
remarkable, and it is still more so that almost all the peninsulas 
tend to the south — circumstances that depend on some unknown 
cause which seems to have acted very extensively. The conti- 
nents of South America, Africa, and Greenland, are peninsulas on 
a gigantic scale, all tending to the south ; the Asiatic peninsula 
of India, the Indo-Chinese peninsula, those of Corea, Kamtchatka, 
of Florida, California, and Aliaska, in North America, as well as 
the European peninsulas of Norway and Sweden, Spain and 
Portugal, Italy and Greece, take the same direction. All the 
latter have a rounded form except Italy, whereas most of the 
others terminate sharply, especially the continents of South 
America and Africa, India, and Greenland, which have the pointed 
form of wedges ; while some are long and narrow, as California, 
Aliaska, and Malacca. Many of the peninsulas have an island 
or group of islands at their extremity, as South America, which 
terminates with the group of Tierra del Fuego : India has Ceylon ; 
Malacca has Sumatra and Banca ; the southern extremity of New 
Holland ends in Van Dieman's Land ; a chain of islands run from 
the end of the peninsula of Aliaska ; Greenland has a group of 
islands at its extremity ; and Sicily lies close to the termination 
of Italy. It has been observed as another pecuharity in the 
structure of peninsulas that they generally terminate boldly, in 
bluffs, promontories, or mountains, which are often the last por- 
tions of the continental chains. South America terminates in 
Cape Horn, a high promontory, which is the visible termination 
of the Andes ; Africa with the Cape of Good Hope ; India with 
Cape Comorin, the last of the Ghauts ; New Holland ends with 
South-East Cape in Van Dieman's Land ; and Greenland's far- 
thest point is the elevated bluff of Cape Farewell.^* 

There is a strong analogy between South America and Africa 
in form and the unbroken mass which their surface presents, 
while North America resembles Europe, in being much indented 
by inland seas, gulfs, and bays. Eastern Asia is evidently con- 
tinued in a subaqueous continent from the Indian Ocean across 

'* This very general view of the structure of the globe originated 
chiefly with the celebrated German geologist Von Buch, and has been 
much extended and developed by M. Elie de Beaumont, one of the 
most philosophical of modern geologists. 



40 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

the Pacific nearly to the west coast of America, of which NeAv 
Holland, the Indian Archipelago, the islands of the Asiatic coast 
and of Oceania, are the great table-lands and summits of its moun- 
tain-chains. With the exception of a vast peninsula in Siberia, 
between the mouths of the rivers Yenesei and Khatanga and the 
unknown regions of Greenland, the two great continents termi- 
nate in a very broken line to the north ; and as they sink beneath 
the Icy Ocean, the tops of their high lands and mountains rise 
above the waves and stud the coast with innumerable snow-clad 
rocks and islands. The 70th parallel is the average latitude of 
these northern shores, which have a great similarity on each side 
of Behring's Straits in form, direction, and in the adjacent 
islands. 

The peninsular form of the continents adds greatly to the 
extent of their coasts, of such importance to civilization and com- 
merce. All the shores of Europe are deeply indented and pene- 
trated by the Atlantic Ocean, which has formed a number of 
inland seas of great magnitude, so that it has a greater line of 
maritime coast, compared with its size, than any other quarter of 
the world. The extent of coast from the Straits of Waigatz, in 
the Polar Ocean, to the Strait of Caffa, at the entrance of the 
Sea of Azoff, is about 17,000 miles. The coast of Asia has 
been much worn by currents, and possibly also by the action 
of the ocean occasioned by the rotation of the earth from west to 
east. On the south and east especially it is indented by large 
seas, bays, and gulfs ; and the eastern shores are rugged and 
encompassed by chains of islands which render navigation dan- 
gerous. Its maritime coast is about 33,000 miles in length. 

The coast of Africa, 16,000 miles long, is very entire, except 
perhaps at the Gulf of Guinea and in the Mediterranean. The 
shores of North America have probably been much altered by the 
equatorial current and the Gulf-stream. There is little doubt that 
these currents, combined with volcanic action, have hollowed out 
the Gulf of Mexico, and separated the Antilles and Bahama Islands 
from the continent. The coast is less broken on the west, but in 
the Icy Ocean there is a labyrinth of gulfs, bays, and creeks. . 
The shores of South America on both sides are very entire, ex- 
cept towards Southern Chile and Cape Horn, where the tremen- 
dous surge and currents of the ocean in those high latitudes have 
eaten into the mountains, and produced endless sounds and fiords 
which run far into the land. The whole continent of America 
has a sea-coast of 31,000 miles. Thus, it appears that the ratio 
of the number of linear miles in the coast-line to the number of 
square miles in the extent of surface, in each of these great por- 
tions of the globe, is 164 for Europe, 376 for Asia, 530 for Africa, 
and 359 for America. Hence, the proportion is most favourable 



ELEVATION OF CONTINENTS. 41 

to Europe, with regard to civilization and commerce ; America 
comes next, then Asia, and last of aJl Africa, which has every 
natural obstacle to contend with, from the extent and nature of its 
coasts, the desert character of the country, and the insalubrity of 
its chmate, on the Atlantic coast at least. 

The continents had been raised from the deep by a powerful 
effort of the internal forces acting under widely-extended regions, 
and the stratified crust of the earth either remained level, rose in 
undulations, or sank into cavities, according to its intensity. 
Some thinner portion of the earth's surface, giving way to the 
internal forces, had been rent into deep fissures, and the moun- 
tain masses had been raised by violent concussions, perceptible 
in the convulsed state of their strata. The centres of maximum 
energy are marked by the pyrogenous rocks, which generally 
form the nucleus or axis of the mountain masses, on whose flanks 
the stratified rocks are tilted at all angles to the horizon, whence, 
declining on every side, they sink to various depths, or stretch to 
various distances in the plains. Enormous as the mountain- 
chains and table-lands are, and prodigious as the forces that 
elevated them, they bear a very small proportion to the mass of 
the level continents and to the vast power which raised them 
even to their inferior altitude. Both the high and the low lands 
had been elevated at successive periods ; some of the very highest 
mountain-chains are but of recent geological date, and some chains 
that are now far inland once stood up as islands above the ocean, 
while marine strata filled their cavities and formed round their 
bases. The influence of mountain- chains on the extent and form 
of the continents is beyond a doubt. 

Notwithstanding the various circumstances of their elevation, 
there is everywhere a certain regularity of form in mountain 
masses, however unsymmetrical they may appear at first, and 
rocks of the same kind have identical characters in every quarter 
of the globe. Plants and animals vary with climate, but a granite 
mountain has the same peculiarities in the southern as in the 
northern hemisphere — at the equator as near the poles. Single 
mountains, insulated on plains, are rare, except where they are 
volcanic ; they generally appear in groups intersected by valleys 
in every direction, and more frequently in extensive chains sym- 
metrically arranged in a series of parallel ridges, separated by 
narrow longitudinal valleys, the highest and most rugged of 
which occupy the centre : when the chain is broad and of the 
first order in point of magnitude, peak after peak arises in end- 
less succession. The lateral ridges and valleys are constantly of 
less elevation, and are less bold, in proportion to their distance 
from the central mass, till at last the most remote ridges sink 
down into gentle undulations. Extensive and lofty branches 
4. 



42 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

diverge from the principal chains at various angles, and stretch 
far into the plains. They are often as high as the chains from 
which they spring, and it happens not unfrequently that these 
branches are united by transverse ridges, so that the country is 
often widely-covered by a net-work of mountains, and, at the 
point where these offsets diverge, there is frequently a knot of 
mountains spreading over hundreds of square miles. 

One side of a mountain range is usually more precipitous than 
the other, but there is nothing in which the imagination misleads 
the judgment more than in estimating the steepness of a declivity. 
In the whole range of the Alps there is not a single rock which 
has 1600 feet of perpendicular height, or a vertical slope of 90°. 
The declivity of Mont Blanc towards the Allee Blanche, precipi- 
tous as it seems, does not amount to 45°; and the mean inclina- 
tion of the peak of Teneriffe, according to Baron Humboldt, is 
only 12° 30'. The Silla of Caraccas, which rises precipitously 
from the Caribbean Sea, at an angle of 53° 28', to the height of 
between 6000 and 7000 feet, is a majestic instance of perhaps 
the nearest approach to perpendicularity of any great height yet 
known. 

The circumstances of elevation are not the only causes of that 
variety observed in the summits of mountains. A difference in 
the composition and internal structure of a rock has a great influ- 
ence upon its general form, and on the degree and manner in 
which it is worn by the weather. Thus dolomite assumes gener- 
ally the form of peaks like saw-teeth ; crystalline schists assume 
the form of needles, as in the Alps ; slates and quartziferous 
schists take the form of triangular pyramids ; calcareous rocks a 
rounded shape ; serpentine and trachyte are often twisted and 
crumpled ; phonolites assume a pyramidal form ; dark walls like 
those in Greenland are of trap and basalt ; and volcanoes are 
indicated by blunt cones and craters. Thus, the mountain-peaks 
often indicate by their form their geological nature. 

Viewing things on a broad scale, it appears that there is also a 
very striking connection between the physical geography or ex- 
ternal aspect of different countries and their geological structure. 
By a minute comparison of the different parts of the land, M. 
Boue has shown that a critical similarity of outward forms, while 
indicating similarity in the producing causes, must also, to a large 
extent, indicate identity of structure, and therefore from the exter- 
nal appearance of an unexplored country its geological structure 
may be inferred, at least to a certain extent. This he illustrates 
by pointing out a correspondence, even in their most minute 
details, between the leading features of Asia and Europe, and the 
identity of their geological structure. It has been justly observed, 
that when the windings of our continents and seas are narrowly 



FORMS OF ROCKS, ETC. 43 

examined, and the more essential peculiarities of their contours 
contemplated, it is evident that Nature has not wrought after an 
indefinite number of types or models, but that, on the contrary, 
her fundamental types are very few, and derived from the action 
of definite constructive forces on a primary base.^^ The whole of 
our land and sea, in fact, may be decomposed into a less or greater 
number of masses, either exhibiting all these fundamental forms 
or merely a portion of them.^*^ The peninsular structure of the 
continents with their accompanying islands is a striking illustra- 
tion of the truth of this remark, and many more might be adduced. 
It follows, as a consequence of that law in Nature's operations, 
that analogy of form and contour throws the greatest light on the 
constitution of countries far removed from each other. Even the 
picturesque descriptions of a traveller often afford information of 
which he may be little aware. 

The determination of the contemporaneous upheaval of parallel 
mountain-chains, by a comparison of the ages of the inclined and 
horizontal strata resting on them, is one of the highest steps of 
generalization which has been attempted by geologists. It was 
first observed by the miners of the Freyberg school, and estab- 
lished as a law by Werner, that veins of the same nature in 
mines occur in parallel fissures opened at the same time, and 
probably filled with metal, also simultaneously, at a subsequent 
period ; and that fissures differing in direction differ also in age. 
As these veins and fissures are rents through the solid strata, 
often of unfathomable depth and immense length, there is the 
strongest analogy between them and those enormous fissures in 
the solid mass of the globe through which the mountain-chains 
have been heaved up. Were the analogy perfect, it ought to 
follow that parallel mountain-chains have been raised simul- 
taneously, that is, by forces acting during the same geological 
periods. By a careful examination of the relative ages of the 
strata resting on the flanks of many of the mountain systems, M. 
Elie de Beaumont has shown, if not proved, that all strata elevated 
simultaneously assume a parallel direction, or, that parallel strata are 
contemporaneous. Should this be confirmed, parallel chains in 
the most distant regions will no longer be regarded as insulated 

« M. Bou^. 

IS The author avails herself with much pleasure of an opportunity of 
expressing her admiration of the accuracy, extent, and execution of 
Mr. Keith Johnston's Physical Atlas, and of the valuable information 
contained in the letterpress which accompanies it, which has aflbrded 
her the greatest assistance As Mr. Johnston is publishing a small and 
cheap edition of his Atlas, well fitted to illustrate these volumes, the 
necessity of inserting in them any similar maps, which was at one 
time contemplated, is obviated. 



44 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

masses. They will indicate the course of enormous fissures that 
have simultaneously rent the solid globe and passed through the 
bed of the ocean from continent to continent, from island to island. 
M. Von Buch has found that four systems of mountains in Ger- 
many accord with this theory, and Mr. Sedgwick has observed 
the same in the Westmoreland system of mountains, believed to 
be the most ancient of which the globe can now furnish any 
traces. This theory of elevation of mountain-chains, which ori- 
ginated with M. Elie de Beaumont, has already led to the dis- 
covery of twelve different periods of fracture and elevation in the 
European continent alone. 

Mr. Hopkins, of Cambridge, has taken a purely mathematical 
view of the subject, and has proved that, when an internal expan- 
sive force acts upwards upon a single point in the earth's crust, 
the splits or cracks must all diverge from that point like radii in 
a circle, vi^hich is exactly the casein many volcanic districts ; that 
when the expansive force acts uniformly from below on a wide 
surface or area, it tends to stretch the surface, so that it would 
split or crack where the tension is greatest, that is, either in the 
direction of the length or breadth ; and if the area yields in more 
places than one, he found that the fissures would necessarily be 
parallel to one another, which agrees with the law of arrangement 
of veins in mines. These results are greatly modified by the shape 
of the area, but the modification is according to a fixed law, which, 
instead of interfering with that of the parallelism of the fissures, 
actually arises from the same action which produces it. This in- 
vestigation agrees in all its details with the fractures in the dis- 
tricts in England to which thej'- were applied, so that theory comes 
to the aid of observation in this still unsettled question.^'' 

It seems to bear on the subject, that parallel mountain-chains 
are similar in geological age, even when separated by seas. For 
instance, the mountains of Sweden and Finland are of the same 
structure, though the Gulf of Bothnia is between them; those of 
Cornwall, Brittany, and the north-west of Spain are similar; the 
Atlas and the Spanish mountains, the chains in CaUfornia and 
those on the adjacent coast of America, and, lastly, those of New 
Guinea and the north-east of Austraha, furnish examples. The 
same correspondence in geological epoch prevails in chains that 
are not parallel, but that are convergent from the form of the earth. 
This observation is also extensively exemplified in those that run 
east and west, as the Alps, the Balkan, Taurus, Paropamisus with 
its prolongation, the Hindoo Coosh, the Himalaya, and in America 
the mountains of Parima and the great chain of Venezuela. 

" ^^ On the Parallel Lines of Simultaneous Elevation in the Weald of 
Kent and Sussex," by Hopkins, Esq. 



INTERRUPTIONS IN CONTINENTS, ETC. 45 

Continents and mountain-chains are often interrupted by poste- 
rior geological changes, such as clefts and cavities formed by ero- 
sion, as evidently appears from the correspondence of the strata. 
The chalk cliffs on the opposite sides of the British Channel show 
that Britain once formed part of the continent; the formation of 
the Orkney Islands and Ireland is the same with that of the High- 
lands of Scotland ; the formation is the same on each side of the 
Straits of Gibraltar; that of Turkey in Europe passes into Asia 
Minor, the Crimea into the Caucasus, a volcanic region bounds the 
Straits of Babelmandel, and Behring's Straits divide the ancient 
strata of a similar age. This is particularly the case with coast 
islands.^s 

Immediately connected with the mountains are the high table- 
lands which form so conspicuous a feature in the Asiatic and 
American continents. These perpetual storehouses of the waters 
send their streams to refresh the plains, and to afford a highway 
between the nations. Table-lands of less elevation, sinking in 
terraces of lower and lower level, constitute the links between the 
high ground and the low, the mountains and the plains, and thus 
maintain the continuity of the land. They frequently are of the 
richest soil, and enjoy the most genial climate, affording a delight- 
ful and picturesque abode to man, though the plains are his prin- 
cipal dwelling. Sloping imperceptibly from the base of the infe- , 
rior table-lands, or from the last undulations of the mountains, to 
the ocean, they carry off the superfluous Avaters. Fruitfulness and 
sterility vary their aspect: immense tracts of the richest soil are 
favoured by climate, and hardly require culture ; a greater portion 
is only rendered productive by hard labour, compelling man to 
fulfil his destiny ; while vast regions are doomed to perpetual bar- 
renness, never gladdened by a shower. 

The form of the great continent has been determined by an 
immense zone of mountains and table-lands, lying between the 30th 
and 40th or 45th parallels of north latitude, which stretches across 
it from W.S.W. to E.N.E., from the coasts of Barbary and Por- 
tugal, on the Atlantic Ocean, to the farthest extremity of Asia, at 
Behring's Straits, in the North Pacific. North of this lies a vast 
plain, extending almost from the Pyrenees to the utmost parts of 
Asia, the greater portion of which is a dead level, or low undula- 
tions, uninterrupted except by the Scandinavian and British sys- 
tem on the north, and the Ural chain, which is of small elevation. 
The low lands south of the mountainous zone are much indented 
by the ocean, and of the most diversified aspect. By much the 
greater part of the flat country lying between the China Sea and 
the river Indus isof the most exuberant fertility, while that between 

18 M. Bou6. 



46 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

the Persian Gulf and the foot of the Atlas is, with some happy- 
exceptions, one of the most desolate tracts on the earth. The 
southern lowlands, too, are broken by a few mountain systems of 
considerable extent and height. 

The Atlas and Spanish mountains form the western extremity 
of that great zone of high lands that girds the old continent almost 
throughout its extent : these two mountain systems were certainly 
at one time united, and from their geological formation, and also 
the parallelism of their mountain-chains, they must have been ele- 
vated by forces acting in the same direction ; now, indeed, the 
Strait of Gibraltar, a sea-filled chasm 960 fathoms deep, divides 
them.^9 

A very elevated and continuous mountain region extends in a 
broad belt along the north-west of Africa, from the promontory of 
Gher, on the Atlantic, to the Gulf of Sidra, in the Mediterranean, 
enclosing all the high lands of Morocco, Algiers, and Tunis. It 
is bounded by the Atlantic and Mediterranean, and insulated from 
the rest of Africa by the desert of Sahara. 

This mountain system consists of three parts. The chain of 
the Greater Atlas, Avhich is farthest inland, extends from Cape 
Gher, on the Atlantic, to the Lesser Syrtis ; and, in Morocco, forms 
a knot of mountains 15,000 feet high, covered with perpetual 
snow. 

The Lesser Atlas begins at Cape Spartel (the ancient Cape 
Cotes) opposite to Gibraltar, and keeps parallel to the Mediterra- 
nean till it attains the Gharian range in Tripoli, the last and lowest 
of the Little Atlas, which runs due east in a uniformly diminishing 
line till it vanishes in the plain of the Great Syrtis. That long, 
rugged, but lower chain of parallel ridges and groups which forms 
the bold coasts of the Straits of Gibraltar and the Mediterranean, 
is only a portion of the Lesser Atlas, which rises above it majesti- 
cally, covered with snow. The flanks of the mountains are gener- 
ally clothed with forests, but their summit is one uninterrupted 
line of bare inaccessible rocks, and they are rent by fissures fre- 
quently not more than a few feet wide — a peculiar feature of the 
whole system. 

The Middle Atlas, lying between the two great chains, consists 
of a table-land, rich in valleys and rivers, which rises in successive 
terraces to the foot of the Greater Atlas, separated by ridges of 
hills parallel to it. This wide and extensive region has a delight- 
ful climate, abounds in magnificent forests, and the valleys are full 
of vitality. The crest of the Atlas is of granite and crystalline 

^^ By the soundings of Captain Smyth, R. N., the Strait is 960 fathoms 
deep between Gibraltar and Ceuta, and varying from 160 to 500 in the 
narrowest part. 



THE PYRENEES. 47 

Strata ; their flanks and lower ranges are sandstone and limestone, 
on which the tertiary strata rest. 

The Spanish peninsula consists chiefly of a table-land traversed 
by parallel ranges of mountains, and is surrounded by the sea, 
except where it is separated from France by the Pyrenees, which 
extend from the Mediterranean to the Bay of Biscay, but are con- 
tinued by the Cantabrian cham to Cape Finisterre on the Atlantic. 

The Pyrenean chain is of moderate height at its extremities, 
but its summit maintains a waving line, whose mean altitude is 
7990 feet ; it rises to a greater height on the east ; its highest 
point is the Malahite or Nethou, 11,170 feet above the sea. The 
snow lies deep on these mountains during the greater part of the 
year, and is perpetual on the highest parts; but the glaciers, which 
are chiefly on the northern side, are neither so numerous nor so 
large as in the Alps. 

The greatest breadth of this range is about 60 miles, and its 
length 270. It is so steep on the French side, so rugged and so 
notched, that from the plains below its sumraits look like the teeth 
of a saw, whence the term Sierra has been appropriated to moun- 
tains of this foam. On the Spanish side, gigantic sloping offsets, 
separated by deep precipitous valleys, extend to the banks of the 
Ebro. All the Spanish mountains are torn by deep crevices, the 
beds of torrents and rivers. 

The interior of Spain is a table-land with an area of 93,000 
square miles, nearly equal to half of the peninsula. It dips to the 
Atlantic from its western side, where its altitude is about 2300 feet. 
There it is bounded by the Iberian mountains, which begin at the 
point where the Pyrenees take the name of the Cantabrian chain, 
and run in a tortuous south-easterly direction through all Spain, 
constituting the eastern boundary of Valencia and Murcia, and 
sending many branches through those provinces to the Mediterra- 
nean : its most elevated point is the Sierra Urbion. 

Four nearly parallel ranges of mountains originate in this limit- 
ing chain, running from E.N.E. to W.S.W. diagonally across the 
peninsula to the Atlantic. Of these, the high Castilian chain of 
the Guadarama and the Sierra de Toledo cross the table-land, the 
Sierra Morena, so called from the dingy colour of its forests of 
Hermes oak, on the southern edge ; and lastly, the Sierra Nevada, 
though only 100 miles long and 50 broad, the finest range of moun- 
tains in Europe after the Alps, traverses the plains of Andalusia 
and Grenada. The table-land is monotonous and bare of trees ; 
the plains of Old Castile are as naked as the Steppes of Siberia, 
and uncultivated, except along the banks of the rivers. Corn and 
wine are produced in abundance on the wide plains of New Cas- 
tile andEstremadura : other places serve for pasture. The table- 
land becomes more fertile as it extends towards Portugal, which 



48 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

is altogethar more productive than Spain, though the maritime pro- 
vinces of the latter on the Mediterranean are luxuriant and beau- 
tiful, with a semi-tropical vegetation. 

Granite, crystalline strata, and primary fossiliferous rocks pre- 
vail chiefly in the Spanish mountains, and give them their pecu- 
liar, bold, serrated aspect. The valleys between the parallel ranges, 
through which the great Spanish rivers flow to the Atlantic, appear 
to have been at one time the basins of lakes. 

The mass of high land is continued through the south of France, 
at a much lower elevation, by chains of hills and table-lands, the 
most remarkable of which are the Montagnes Noires, and the great 
plateau of Auvergne, once the theatre of violent volcanic action. 
It continued from the beginning to the middle of the tertiary period, 
so that there are cones and craters of various ages and perfect form : 
some of the highest, as the Puy de Dome, are trachytic domes of 
elevation ; Mont d'Or, 6200 feet high, is a portion of an immense 
crater of elevation.^'' The volcanic mountains of Auvergne, and 
the Cevennes, which are a little lower, are the most remarkable 
of the French system ; the offsets of the latter reach the right bank 
of the Rhone. In fact, the French mountains are the link between 
the more elevated masses of Western and Eastern Europe. 

The eastern and highest part of the European portion of the 
mountain-zone begins to rise above the low-lands about the 52d 
parallel of north latitude, ascending by terraces, groups, and chains 
of mountains, through six or seven degrees of latitude, till it reaches 
its highest point in the great range of the Alps and Balkan. The 
descent on the south side of this lofty mass is much more rapid 
and abrupt, and the immediate offsets from the Alps shorter ; but, 
taking a very general view, the Apennines and mountains of 
Northern Sicily, those of Greece and the southern part of Turkey 
in Europe, with all the islands of the adjacent coasts, are but out- 
lying members of the general protuberance. 

The principal chain of the Hyrcanian mountains, the Sudetes, 
and the Carpathian mountains, form the northern boundary of these 
high lands : the first, consisting of three parallel ridges, extends 
from the right bank of the Rhine to the centre of Germany, about 
51° or 52° of N. lat., with a mean breadth of about 100 miles, and 
terminates in the knot of the Fichtelberge, covering an area of 9000 
square miles, on the confines of Bavaria and Bohemia. The Sudetes 
begin on the east of this group, and, after a circuit of 300 miles 
round Bohemia, terminate at the small elevated plain of the Upper 

20 A crater of elevation is a mountain, generally dome-shaped, whose 
top has sunk into a crater or hollow, after the internal force which raised 
it was withdrawn, but from which no lava has issued. Dome-shaped 
mountains owe their form to internal pressure, probably from lava, but 
which have not sunk into a crater. 



THE HIGHER ALPS. 49 

Oder, which connects them with the Carpathian mountains. No 
part of these Hmiting ranges attains the height of 5000 feet, except 
the Carpathians, some of which are very high. They consist of 
mountain-groups united by elevated plains, rather than of a single 
chain : the Tatra mountains, bisected by the 20th meridian, is their 
loftiest point. This range is high also in Transylvania, before it 
reaches the Danube, which divides it from a secondary branch of 
the Balkan. Spurs decline in undulations from these limiting 
chains on the great northern plain, and the country to the south, 
intervening between them and the Alps, is covered with an intri- 
cate network of mountains and plains of moderate elevation. 

The higher Alps, which form the western crest of the elevated 
zone, may be said to begin at the Cape della Melle on the Gulf of 
Genoa, and bend round by the west and north to Mont Blanc ; 
then turning E.N.E. they run through the Grisons and Tyrol to 
the Great Glockner, in 40° 7' N. lat., and 12° 43' E. long., where 
the higher Alps terminate a course 420 miles long. All this chain 
is lofty ; much of it is above the line of perpetual congelation ; 
the most elevated part lies between the Col de la Seigne, on the 
western shoulder of Mont Blanc, and the Simplon. The highest 
mountains in Europe are comprised within this space, not more 
than 60 miles long, where Mont Blanc, the highest of all, has an 
absolute elevation of 15,759-8 feet. The central ridge of the 
higher Alps is jagged with peaks, pyramids, and needles of bare 
and almost perpendicular rock, rising from fields of perpetual 
snow and rivers of ice to an elevation of 14,000 feet. Many 
parallel chains a.nd groups, alike rugged and snowy, press on the 
principal crest, and send their flanks far into the lower grounds. 
Innumerable secondary branches, hardly lower than the main 
crest, diverge from it in various directions ; of these, the chain 
of the Bernese Alps is the highest and most extensive. It breaks 
off at the St. Gothard, in a line parallel to the principal chain, 
separates the Valais from the Canton of Berne, and with its rami- 
fications forms one of the most remarkable groups of mountain 
scenery in Europe. Its endless maze of sharp ridges and bare 
peaks, mixed with gigantic masses of pure snow, fading coldly 
serene into the blue horizon, present a scene of sublime quiet and 
repose, unbroken but by the avalanche or the thunder. 

At the Great Glockner the range of the Alps, hitherto undivided, 
splits into two branches, the Noric and Carnic Alps : the latter 
is the continuation of the chief stem. Never rising to the height 
of perpetual snow, it separates the Tyrol and Upper Carinthia 
from the Venetian States, and, taking the name of the Julian Alps 
at Mont Terglou, runs east till it joins the Eastern Alps, or Bal- 
kan, under the 18th meridian. Offsets from this chain cover all 
the neighbouring countries. 
5 



50 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

It is difficult to estimate the width of the Alpine chain : that 
of the higher Alps is about 100 miles ; it increases to 150 east of 
the Grisons, and amounts to 200 between the 15th and 16th 
meridians, but is not more than 80 at its junction with the 
Balkan. 

The Stelvio, 9174 feet above the sea, is the highest carriage- 
pass in these mountains. That of St. Gothard goes directly over 
the crest of the Alps. Passes very rarely go over the summit of 
a mountain ; they generally cross the watershed, ascending by 
the valley of a torrent, and descending by a similar path on the 
other side. 

The frequent occurrence of extensive deep lakes is a peculiar 
feature in European mountains, rarely to be met with in the Asia- 
tic system, except in the Altai and on the elevated plains. 

With the exception of the Jura, whose pastoral summit is about 
3000 feet above the sea, there are no elevated table-lands in the 
Alps ; the tabular form, so eminently characteristic of the Asia- 
tic high lands, begins in the Balkan. The Oriental peninsula 
rises by degrees from the Danube to Bosnia and Upper Mace- 
donia, which are some hundred feet above the sea; and the Bal- 
kan extends 600 miles along this elevated mass, from the Julian 
Alps to Cape Eminec on the Black Sea. It begins by a table- 
land 70 miles long, traversed by low hills, ending, towards Alba- 
nia and Myritida, in precipitous limestone rocks from 6000 to 
7000 feet high. Rugged mountains, all but impassable, succeed 
to this, in which the domes and needles of the Schandach, or 
ancient Scamus, are covered with perpetual snow. Another 
table-land follows, whose marshy surface is bounded by mural 
precipices at Mount Arbelus, near the town of Sophia. There 
the Hemus, or Balkan properly so called, begins, and runs in 
parallel ridges, separated by longitudinal valleys, to the Black 
Sea, dividing the plains between the Lower Danube and the Pro- 
pontis into nearly equal parts. The central ridge is passable in 
few places, and where there is no lateral ridge the precipices 
descend at once to the plains. 

The Balkan is everywhere rent by terrific fissures across the 
chains and table-lands, so deep and narrow that daylight is almost 
excluded. These chasms afford the safest passes across the 
range; the others along the faces of the precipices are frightful. 

The Mediterranean is the southern boundary of the elevated 
zone of Eastern Europe, whose last offsets rise in rocky islands 
along the coasts. The crystalHne mountains of Sardinia and Cor- 
sica are outlying members of the Maritime Alps, while shorter 
offsets end in the plains of Lombardy, forming the magnificent 
scenery of the Itahan lakes. Even the Apennines, whose eleva- 
tion has given its form to the peninsula of Italy, are but second- 



GRECIAN MOUNTAINS. 51 

ary on a greater scale to the broad central band, as well as the 
mountains and high land in the north of Sicily, which form the 
continuance of the Calabrian chain. 

The Apennines, beginning at the Maritime Alps, enclose the 
Gulf of Genoa, and run through the centre of Italy in parallel 
ranges to the middle of Calabria, where they split into two 
branches, one of which goes to Capo de Leuca, on the Gulf of 
Torento, the other to Cape Spartivento, in the Straits of Messina. 
The whole length is about 800 miles. None of the Apennines 
come within the line of perpetual snow, though it lies nine months 
in the year on the Gran Sasso d'ltalia, 9531 feet high, in Abruzza 
Ulteriore. 

Offsets from the Julian and Eastern Alps render Dalmatia and 
Albania perhaps the most rugged tract in Europe ; and the Pin- 
dus, which forms the watershed of Greece, diverges from the latter 
chain, and, running south 200 miles, separates Albania from 
Macedonia and Thessaly. 

Greece is a country of mountains, and, although none are per- 
petually covered with snow, it lies nine months on several of their 
summits. The chains terminates in strongly projecting head- 
lands, which reach far into the sea, and reappear in the numerous 
islands and rocks which stud that deeply-indented coast. The 
Grecian mountains, like the Balkan, are torn by transverse frac- 
tures. The defile of Blatamana and the Gulf of Salonica are 
examples. The Adriatic, the Dardanelles, and the Sea of Mar- 
mora limit the secondaries of the southern part of the Balkan, 

The valleys of the Alps are long and narrow ; those among the 
mountains of Turkey in Europe and Greece are mostly caldron- 
shaped hollows, often enclosed by mural rocks. Many of these 
cavities of great size lie along the foot of the Balkan. In the Morea 
they are so encompassed by mountains that the water has no 
escape but through the porous soil. They consist of tertiary strata, 
which had formed the bottom of lakes. Caldron-shaped valleys 
occur also in most volcanic countries, as Sicily, Italy, and central 
France. 

The table-lands which constitute the tops of mountains or of 
mountain-chains are of a different character from those terraces 
by which the high lands slope to the low. The former are on a 
small scale in Europe, and of a forbidding aspect, with the excep- 
tion of the Jura, which is pastoral, whereas the latter are almost 
always habitable and cultivated. The mass of high land in south- 
eastern Europe shelves on the north to the great plain of Bavaria, 
3000 feet high ; Bohemia, which slopes from 1500 to 900 feet ; 
and Hungary, from 4000 above the sea to 300. The descent on 
the south of the Alps is six or seven times more rapid, because 
the distance from the axis of the chain is shorter. 



52 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

It is scarcely possible to estimate the quantity of ice on the 
Alps ; it is said, however, that, independent of the glaciers in the 
Grisons, there are 1500 square miles of ice in the Alpine range, 
from 80 to 600 feet thick. There are no glaciers east of the 
Great Glockner, except on the small group of Hallstadt. Thirty- 
four bound the snowy regions of Mont Blanc, and 95 square 
miles of snow and ice clothe that mountain. Some glaciers have 
been permament and stationary in the Alps time immemorial, 
while others now occupy ground formerly bearing corn or covered 
■with trees, which the irresistible force of the ice has swept away. 
These ice-rivers, formed on the snow-clad summits of the moun- 
tains, fill the hollows and high valleys, hang on the dechvities, 
or descend by their weight through the tranverse valleys to the 
plains, where they are cut short by the increased temperature, 
and deposit those accumulations of rocks and rubbish, called 
moraines, which had fallen upon them from the heights above ; 
but their motion is so slow, that six generations may pass before 
a stone fallen on the upper end of a long glacier can reach the 
moraine. In the Alps, the glaciers move at the rate of from 12 to 
25 feet annually, and, as in rivers, the motion is most rapid in the 
centre, and slower at the sides and bottom on account of friction. 
It is slower in winter, yet it does not cease, because the winter's 
cold penetrates the ice, as it does the ground, only to a limited 
depth. Glaciers are not of solid ice ; they consist of a mixture 
of ice, snow, and water ; so that they are in some degree flexible 
and viscous, but acquire more solidity as they descend to lower 
levels ; evaporation goes on at their surface, but they are not con- 
sumed by it. The front is perpetually melting, but maintains a 
permanent form ; it is steep and inaccessible, owing to the figure 
of the ground over which it tumbles in its icy cascade, sometimes 
1000 feet high. The middle course is rather level, the higher 
part very steep, and the surface is uneven and rent by crevices 
into which the purest blue streams fall in rushing cascades while 
the sun is up, but they freeze at his setting, and then a death-like 
silence prevails. The rocks and stones that fall on them from the 
surrounding heights protect the ice below from the sun which 
melts it all around, so that at last they rest on elevated pinnacles 
till they fall off by their weight, and in this manner those numer- 
ous pyramids are formed with which the surface is bristled. 
Throughout much of the length of a glacier the winter's snow 
melts from its surface as completely as it does from the ground ; 
it is fed from above, for in the upper part the snow never melts, 
but accumulates in a stratified form and is consolidated. In some 
of the largest glaciers, where there is a difference of 4000 feet in 
height between the origin and termination, the pressure is enor- 
mous and irresistible, carrying all before it ; even the thickest 
forest is overwhelmed and crushed. 



GEOLOGICAL NOTICE. 53 

Glaciers advance or retreat according to the severity or mild- 
ness of the season ; they have been advancing in Switzerland of 
late years, but they are subject to cycles of unknown duration. 
From the moraines, as well as the striae engraven on the rocks 
over which they have passed, M. Agassiz has ascertained that the 
valley of Chamouni was at one time occupied by a glacier that 
had moved towards the Col de Balme. A moraine 2000 feet 
above the Rhone at St. Maurice would appear to indicate that, at 
a remote period, glaciers had covered Switzerland to the height of 
2155 feet above the Lake of Geneva. 

Their increase is now limited by various circumstances — as the 
mean temperature of the earth, which is always above the freez- 
ing-point in those latitudes ; excessive evaporation ; and blasts of 
hot air, which occur at all heights, in the night as well as in the 
day, from some unknown cause. They are not peculiar to the 
Alps, but have been observed also in the giaciers of the Andes. 
From the heat of the valley thawing the ice, the natural springs 
that rise under the glacier as they do elsewhere, the heat of the 
earth, the melting of the glacier itself, the rain that falls on its 
surface, which rushes down its crevices, a stream of turbid water 
is formed which works out an ic}'- cavern at the termination of the 
glacier and flows through it into the lower ground. Thus, a gla- 
cier " begins in the clouds, is formed by the mountains, and ends 
in the ocean. "^^ 

Granite no doubt forms the base of the mountain system of 
Eastern Europe, though it more rarely comes into view than 
might have been expected. Crystalline schists of various kinds 
are enormously developed, and generally form the most elevated 
pinnacles of the Alpine crest and its offsets, and also the principal 
chains in Greece and Turkey in Europe ; but the secondary 
fossiliferous strata constitute the chief mass, and often rise to the 
highest summits ; indeed, secondary limestones occupy a great 
portion of the high land of Eastern Europe. Calcareous rocks 
form two great mountain-zones on each side of the central chain 
of the Alps, and rise occasionally to altitudes of 10,000 or 12,000 
feet. They constitute a great portion of the central range of the 
Apennines, and fill the greater part of Sicily. They are exten- 
sively developed in Turkey in Europe, where the plateau of 
Bosnia with its high lands on the south, part of Macedonia, and 
Albania with its islands, are principally composed of them.^ 
Tertiary strata of great thickness rest on the flanks of the Alps, 
and rise in some places to a height of 5000 feet; zones of the 
older Pleiocene period flank the Apennines on each side, filled 
with organic remains ; and half of Sicily is covered with the 

*' Professor Forbes on Glaciers. 2^2 Dj. goue. 

5* 



54 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

Pleiocene strata. It appears that the Atlas, the Sierra Morena 
and most of the Spanish mountains, the central chain of the 
Caucasus, and the Balkan, were raised before the period of the 
erratic blocks. 

From numerous dislocations in the strata, the Alps appear to 
have been heaved up by many violent ^nd repeated convulsions, 
separated by intervals of repose, and different parts of the chain 
have been raised at different times ; for example, the Maritime 
Alps and the south-western part of the Jura mountains were 
raised previously to the formation of the chalk : but the tertiary 
period appears to have been that of the greatest commotions ; for 
nearly two-thirds of the lands of Europe have risen since the 
beginning of that epoch, and those that existed then acquired 
additional height, though some sank below their original level. 
During that time the Alps acquired an additional elevation of 
between 2000 and 8000 feet; Mont Blanc then attained its present 
altitude; the Apennines rose 1000 or 2000 feet higher; and the 
Carpathians seem to have gained an accession of height since the 
seas were inhabited by the existing species of animals.^^ 



CHAPTER III. 



The High Lands of the Great Continent (continued) — The Caucasus — 
The Western Asiatic Table-Land and its Mountains. 

The Dardanelles and the Sea of Marmora form but a small break 
in the mighty girdle of the old continent, which again appears in 
immense table-lands, passing through the centre of Asia, of such 
magnitude that they occupy nearly two-fifths of the continent. 
Here everything is on a much grander scale than in Europe : the 
table-lands rise above the mean height of the European moun- 
tains, and the mountains themselves that gird and traverse them 
surpass those of every other country in altitude. The most bar- 
ren deserts are here to be met with, as well as the most luxuriant 
productions of animal and vegetable life. The earhest records of 
the human race are found in this cradle of civihzation, and monu- 
ments still remain which show the skill and power of those 
nations which have passed away, but whose moral influence is 
still visible in their descendants. Customs, manners, and even 
prejudices, carry us back to times beyond the record of history, 
or even of tradition; while the magnitude with which the natural 

23 Sir Charles Lyell. 



WESTERN ASIATIC TABLE-LAND. 55 

world is here developed evinces the tremendous forces that must 
have been in action at epochs immeasurably anterior to the 
existence of man. 

The gigantic mass of high land which extends for 6000 miles 
between the Mediterranean and the Pacific is 2000 miles broad at 
its eastern extremity, 700 to 1000 in the middle, and somewhat 
less at its termination. Colossal mountains and elevated terraces 
form the edges of the lofty plains. 

Between the 47lh and 68th eastern meridians, where the low 
plains of Hindostan and Bokara press upon the table-land and 
reduce its width to 700 or 1000 miles, it is divided into two parts 
by an enormous knot of mountains formed by the meeting of the 
Hindoo Coosh, the Himalaya, the Tsung-lin, and the transverse 
ranges of the Beloot Tagh, or Cloudy Mountains : these two parts 
differ in height, form, and magnitude. 

The western portion, which is the table-land of Persia or plateau 
of Iran, is oblong, extending from the shores of Asia Minor to the 
Hindoo Coosh and the Solimaun range, which skirts the right 
bank of the Indus. It occupies an area of 1,700,000 square miles, 
generally about 4000 feet above the sea, and in some places 7000. 
The Oriental plateau or table-land of Tibet, much the largest, has 
an area of 7,600,000 square miles, a mean altitude of 14,000 feet, 
and in some parts of Tibet an absolute altitude of 17,000 feet. 

As the table-lands extend from S.W. to N.E., so also do the 
principal mountain-chains, as well those which bound the high 
lands as those which traverse them. Remarkable exceptions to 
this equatorial direction of the Asiatic mass, however, occur in a 
series of meridional chains, whose axes extend from S.S.E. to 
N.N.W., between Cape Comoron, opposite to Ceylon, and the 
Arctic Ocean, under the names of the Western Ghauts, the Soli- 
maun range (which forms the eastern boundary of the table-land 
of Persia), the Beloot Tagh, or Bolor (which is the western limit 
of the Oriental plateau), and the Ural Mountains. These chains, 
rich in gold, lie in different longitudes, and so alternate among 
themselves that each begins only in that latitude which has not 
yet been attained by the preceding one. The Khinghan, in 
China, also extends from south to north along the eastern slopes 
of the table-land, and forms its boundary at that end.^* 

The lofty range of the Caucasus, which extends 700 miles 
between the Black and Caspian Seas, is an outlying member of 
the Asiatic high lands. Offsets diverge like ribs from each side 
of the central crest, which penetrate the Russian Steppes on one 
hand, and on the other cross the plains of Kara, or valley of the 
Kour and Rioni, and unite the Caucasus to the table-land. Some 

^ Johnston's Physical Atlas. 



56 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

parts of these mountains are very high ; the Elburz, on the 
western border of Georgia, is 17,796 feet. The central part of 
the chain is full of glaciers, and the limit of perpetual snow is at 
the altitude of 11,000 feet, which is higher than in any other 
chain of the old continent, except the Flimalaya. 

Anatolia, the most western part of the table-land of Iran, 3000 
feet above the sea, is traversed by short- chains and broken groups 
of mountains, separated by fertile valleys, which sink rapidly 
towards the Archipelago, and end in promontories and islands 
along the shores of Asia Minor, which is a country abounding in 
vast, luxuriant, but solitary plains, watered by broad rivers — in 
Alpine platforms and mountain-ridges broken up by great valleys, 
opening seawards, with meandering streams. Single mountains 
of volcanic formation are conspicuous objects on the table-land of 
Anatolia, which is rich in pasture, though much of the soil is 
saline and covered with lakes and marshes. A triple range of 
limestone mountains, 6000 or 7000 feet high, divided by narrow 
but beautiful valleys, is the limit of the Anatolian table-land along 
the shores of the Black Sea. Two-thirds of their height are 
covered with forests, and broken by wooded glens, leaving a 
narrow coast, except near Trebizond, where it is broad and pic- 
turesque. The high land is bounded on the south by the serrated 
snowy range of the Taurus, which, beginning in Rhodes, Cos, 
and other islands in the Mediterranean, fills the south-western 
parts of Asia Minor with ramifications, and, after following the 
sinuosities of the iron-bound coast of Karamania in a single lofty 
range, extends at Samisat, where the Euphrates has pierced a 
way through this stony girdle. 

About the 50th meridian the table-land is compressed to nearly 
half its width, and there the lofty mountainous regions of Armenia, 
Kourdistan, and Azerbijan tower higher and higher between the 
Black Sea, the Caspian, and the Gulf of Scanderoon in the Medi- 
terranean. Here the cold treeless plains of Armenia, the earliest 
abode of man, 7000 feet above the sea, bear no traces of the Gar- 
den of Eden ; Mount Ararat, on which the Ark is said to have 
rested, stands a solitary majestic volcanic cone, 17,260 feet above 
the sea, shrouded in perpetual snow. Though high and cold, the 
soil of Armenia is richer than that of Anatolia, and is better culti- 
vated. It shelves on the north in luxuriant and beautiful declivities 
to the low and undulating valley of Kara, south of the Caucasus ; 
and, on the other hand, the broad and lofty belt of the Kourdistan 
mountains, rising abruptly in many parallel ranges from the plains 
of Mesopotamia, form its southern limit, and spread their ramifica- 
tions wide over its surface. They are rent by deep ravines, and 
in many places are so rugged that communication between the 
villages is always difficult, and in winter impracticable from the 



WESTERN ASIATIC MOUNTAINS. 57 

depth of snow. The line of perpetual congelation is decided and 
even along their summit; their flanks are wooded, and the valleys 
populous and fertile. 

A thousand square miles of Kourdistan is occupied by the 
brackish lake Van, which is seldom frozen, though 5467 feet 
above the sea, and surrounded by lofty mountains. 

The Persian mountains, of which Elburz is the principal chain, 
extend along the northern brink of the plateau, from Armenia, 
almost parallel to the shores of the Caspian Sea, maintaining a 
considerable elevation up to the volcanic peak of Demavend,near 
Tehran, their culminating point, which, though 90 miles inland, 
is a landmark to sailors on the Caspian. Elevated offsets of these 
mountains cover the volcanic table-land of Azerbijan, the fire- 
country of Zoroaster, and one of the most fertile provinces of 
Persia ; there the Koh Salavan elevates its volcanic cone. Beauti- 
ful plains, pure streams, and peaceful glades, interspersed with 
villages, lie among the mountains, and the Vale of Khosran Shah, 
a picture of sylvan beauty, is celebrated as one of the five para- 
dises of Persian poetry. The vegetation at the foot of these 
mountains on the shores of the Caspian has all the exuberance of 
a tropical jungle. The Elburz loses its height to the east of 
Demavend, and then joins the mountains of Khorasan and the 
Paropamisan range, which appear to be chains of mountains 
when viewed from the low plains of Khorasan and Balkh, but on 
the table-land of Persia they merely form a broad hilly country of 
rich soil, till they join the Hindoo Coosh. 

The table-land of Iran is bounded, for 1,000 miles along the 
Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean, by a mountainous belt of from 
three to seven parallel ranges, having an average width of 200 
miles, and extending from the extremity of the Kourdistan Moun- 
tains to the mouth of the Indus. The Lasistan Mountains, which 
form the northern part of this belt, and bound the vast level plain 
of the Tigris, rise from it in a succession of high table-lands 
divided by very rugged mountains, the last ridge of which, mostly 
covered with snow, abuts on the table-land of Persia. Oaks clothe 
their flanks ; the valleys are of generous soil, verdant, and culti- 
vated ; and many rivers flow through them to swell the stream of 
the Tigris. Insulated hill forts, from 2000 to 5000 feet high, 
occur in this country, with flat cultivated tops some miles in 
extent, accessible only by ladders, or holes cut in their precipi- 
tous sides. These countries are full of ancient inscriptions and 
remains of antiquity. The moisture decreases more and more 
south from Shiraz, and then the parallel ridges, repulsive in 
aspect and difficult to pass, are separated by arid longitudinal 
valleys, which ascend like steps from the narrow shores of the 
Persian Gulf to the table-land. The coasts of the gulf are burn- 



58 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

ing hot sand solitudes, so completely barren, that the country 
from Bassora to the Indus, a distance of 1200 miles, is nearly a 
sterile waste. In the [ew favoured spots on the terraces where 
water occurs there is vegetation, and the beauty of these valleys 
is enhanced by surrounding sterility,"^ 

With the exception of Mazenderan and the other provinces 
bordering upon the Caspian, and in the Paropamisan range, 
Persia is arid, possessing few perennial springs, and not one great 
river ; in fact, three-tenths of the country is a desert, and the 
table-land is nearly a wide scene of desolation. A great salt- 
desert occupies 27,000 square miles between Irak and Khorasan, 
of which the soil is a stiff" clay, covered with efflorescence of com- 
mon salt and nitre, often an inch thick, varied only by a few saline 
plants and patches of verdure in the hollows. This dreary waste 
joins the large sandy and equally dreary desert of Kerman. Kelat, 
the capital of Belochistan, is 7000 feet above the level of the sea: 
round it there is cultivation, but the greater part of that country 
is a lifeless plain, over which the brick-red sand is drifted by the 
north wind into ridges like the waves of the sea, often 12 feet 
high, without a vestige of vegetation. The blast of the desert, 
whose hot and pestilential breath is fatal to man and animals, 
renders these dismal sands impassable at certain seasons. 

Barren lands or bleak downs prevail at the foot of the Lukee 
and Sohmaun ranges, formed of bare porphyry and sandstone, 
which skirt the eastern edge of the table-land, and dip to the 
plains of the Indus. In Afghanistan there is little cultivation 
except on the banks of the streams that flow into the Lake Zerrah, 
but vitality returns towards the north-east. The plains and val- 
leys among the offsets from the Hindoo Coosh are of surpassing 
loveliness, and combine the richest peaceful beauty with the 
majesty of the snow-capped mountains by which thej?^ are encir- 
cled. 



CHAPTER IV. 



The High Lands of the Great Continent (continued) — ^The Oriental Table- 
Land and its Mountains. 

The Oriental plateau, or table-land of Tibet, is an irregular four- 
sided mass stretching from S.W. to N.E., enclosed and traversed by 
the highest mountains in the world. It is separated from the table- 
land of Persia by the Hindoo Coosh, which may be considered as 

^ Sir John Malcolm on Persiaj and Mr. Morier's Travels. 



EASTERN ASIATIC MOUNTAINS. 59 

the western prolongation of the Himalaya, occupying the terres- 
trial isthmus between the low lands of Hindostan and Bucharia. 

The cold dreary plateau of Tibet is separated on the south from 
the glowing luxuriant plains of Flindostan by the Himalaya, which 
extends from the eastern extremity of the Hindoo Coosh in Cabu- 
listan to about the 95th meridian, where it joins the immense 
mountain-knot which renders the south-western corner of the 
table-land and the Chinese province of Yun-nan one of the most 
elevated regions on the earth. On the west, the table-land has 
its limits in the chain of the Bolor or Beloot Tagh, the "Cloudy 
Mountains,'' the Tartash Tagh of the natives, a transverse range 
which detaches itself from the Hindoo Coosh nearly at a right 
angle about the 72d degree of E. longitude, and, pursuing a 
northerly direction, forms magnificent mountain-knots with the 
diagonal chains of the table-land, and is the watershed between 
the valley of the Oxus and Chinese Tartary. It descends in a 
succession of tiers or terraces through the countries of Bokhara 
and Balkh to the deep cavity in which the Caspian Sea and the 
Sea of Azoff lie, and forms, with the Western Ghauts, the Soh- 
maun range, and the Ural, a singular exception to the general 
parallelism of the Asiatic mountains. Two narrow difficult passes 
lead over the Beloot Tagh from the low plains of Bucharia and 
Independent Tourkistan to Kashgar and Yarkand, on the table- 
land in Chinese Tartary. The north-eastern edge of the table- 
land is bounded by the Khing-han Mountains, a serrated granitic 
chain running from south to north, which separates the plateau 
of Mongolia from the country of Mantchouria, and joins the Yab- 
lonoi branch of the Altai at right angles about the 55th degree of 
north latitude. Little more is known of the south-eastern bound- 
ary of the table-land than that it is a mass of exceedingly high 
mountains. In fact, between the sources of the Brahmapootra 
and the Akai chain, nearly 1,000,000 of square miles of the Chi- 
nese empire is covered with mountains. 

The table-land itself is crossed longitudinally from west to east 
by two great chains. The Kuenlun, or Chinese range, begins 
about 35° 30' N. lat. at the mountain-knot of Tsung-hn, formed 
by the Hindoo Coosh and Himalaya, and, running eastward, it 
terminates about the 11 0th meridian, but probably covers a great 
part of the western provinces of China with its branches. The 
Thian-shan, or "Celestial Mountains," He more to the north; 
they begin at the Bolor or Beloot Tagh, and, running along the 
42d parallel, sink to the desert of the Great Gobi about the centre 
of the plateau, but, rising again, they are continued under the 
name of Shan-Garjan, which runs to the north-east and ends on 
the shores of the Japan Sea. The Thian-shan is exceedingly 



60 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

volcanic, and, though so far inland, pours forth lava, and exhibits 
all the other phenomena of volcanic districts. 

Tibet is enclosed between the Himalaya and the Kuen-lun ; 
Tungut, or Chinese Tartary, lies between the latter chain and the 
Thian-shan, or Celestial Mountains ; and Zungary, or Mongolia, 
between the Celestial range and the Altai. The meridional chain 
of the Bolor encloses Chinese Tartary on the west; and Mon- 
golia, which is entirely open on the west, is shut in on the east 
by the Khing-han range, also running from south to north. The 
Himalaya and Altai ranges diverge in their easterly courses, so 
that the table-land, which is only from 700 to 1000 miles wide 
at its western extremity, is 2000 between the Chinese province of 
Yunnan and the country of the Mantchou Tonguses.^^ 

Of all these vast chains of mountains the Himalaya, and its 
principal branch the Hindoo Coosh, are best known ; though 
even of these a great part has never been explored, on account of 
their enormous height and the depth of snow, which make it impos- 
sible to approach the central ridge, except in a very few places. 

The range consists of three parts : the Hindoo Coosh, or Indian 
Caucasus, which extends from the Paropamisan range in Afghan- 
istan to Cashmere ; the Himalaya, or Imaus of the ancients, which 
stretches from the vallej^ of Cashmere to Bhotan ; and, lastly, the 
mountains of Bhotan and Assam — the three making one magnifi- 
cent unbroken chain. 

The Hindoo Coosh, which has its name from a mountain of 
great height, north of the cit}- of Cabul, is very broad to the west, 
extending over many degrees of latitude, and, together with the 
offsets of the Beloot Tagh, fills the countries of KafTeristan, Koon- 
duz, and Budakshan. From the plains to the south it seems to 
consist of four distinct ranges running one above another, the last 
of which abuts on the table-land, and is so high that its snowy 
summits are visible at the distance of 150 miles. A ridge of stu- 
pendous height encloses the beautiful valley of Cashmere, to the 
east of which the chain takes the name of Himalaya, "the dwell- 
ing of snow." From the great mountain-knot of Tsung-lin, the 
Himalaj'-a no longer maintains its direct easterly course, but makes 
a vast arch to the south of 300 miles, which extends to the Brah- 
mapootra, varying in breadth from 250 to 350 miles, and occupj^- 
ing an area of 600,000 square miles. ^^ 

The general structure of the Himalaya is very regular : the 
first range of hills that rise above the plains of Hindostan is allu- 
vial, north of which lies the Tariyani, a tract from 10 to 30 miles 
wide, 1000 feet above the sea, covered with dense pestilential 
jungle, and extending along the foot of the range. North of this 



Johnston's Physical Atlas. ^^ Ibid. 



THE HIMALAYA. 61 

region are rocky ridges 5000 or 6000 feet high. Between these 
and the higher ranges he the peaceful and well-cuUivated valleys 
of Nepaul, Bholan, and Assam, of inexhaustible fertihty, inter- 
spersed with picturesque and populous towns and villages. 
Though separated by mountain-groups, they form the principal 
terrace of the Himalaya between the Sutlej and Brahmapootra. 
Behind these are mountains from 10,000 to 12,000 feet high, 
flanked by magnificent forests ; and, lastly, the snowy ranges 
rise in succession to the table-land. 

The principal and most elevated chains are cut by narrow, 
gloomy ravines and transverse dusky gorges, through which the 
torrents of melted snow rush to swell the rivers of Hindostan. 
The character of the valleys becomes softer in the lower regions, 
till at last the luxuriance of vegetation and beauty cannot be sur- 
passed. Transverse valleys, however, are more frequent in the 
Hindoo Coosh than in the Himalaya, where they consist chiefly 
of such chasms filled with wreck as the tributaries of the Indus 
and Ganges have made in bursting through the chain. 

The mean height of the Himalaya is stupendous. Captain. 
Gerard and his brother estimated that it could not be less than 
from 16,000 to 20,000 feet ; but, from the average elevation of 
the passes over these mountains. Baron Humboldt thinks it must 
be under 15,700 feet. Colonel Sabine estimates it to be only 
11,510 feet, though the peaks exceeding that elevation are not to 
be numbered, especially at the sources of the Sutlej ; indeed, from 
that river to the Kalee, the chain exhibits an endless succession 
of the loftiest mountains on earth ; forty of them surpass the 
height of Chimborazo, one of the highest of the Andes, and seve- 
ral reach the height of 25,000 feet at least. So rugged is this 
part of the magnificent chain, that the mihtary parade at Sabathoo, 
half a mile long and a quarter of a mile broad, is said to be the 
only level ground between it and the Tartar frontier on the north, 
or the valley of Nepaul on the east. Towards the fruitful valleys 
of Nepaul and Bhotan the Himalaya is equally lofty, some of the 
mountains being 28,000 feet high ; but it is narrower, and the 
descent to the plains excessively rapid, especially m the territory 
of Bhotan, where the dip from the table-land is more than 10,000 
feet in ten miles. The valleys are crevices so deep and narrow, 
and the mountains that hang over them in menacing cliffs are so 
lofty, that these abysses are shrouded in perpetual gloom, except 
where the rays of a vertical sun penetrate their depths. From 
the steepness of the descent the rivers shoot down with the swift- 
ness of an arrow, filHng the caverns Avith foam and the air with 
mist. At the very base of this wild region lies the elevated and 
peaceful valley of Bhotan, vividly green, and shaded by magnifi- 
6 



62 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

cent forests. Another rapid descent of 1000 feet leads to the 
plain of the Ganges. 

The Himalaya still maintains great height along the north of 
Assam, and at the Brahmapootra the parent stem and its branches 
extend in breadth over two degrees of latitude, forming a vast 
mountain-knot of great elevation. Beyond this point nothing 
certain is known of the range, but it or some of its branches are 
supposed to cross the southern provinces of the Chinese empire, 
and to end in the volcanic island of Formosa. Little more is 
known of the northern side of the mountains than that the passes 
are about 5000 feet above the plains of Tibet. 

The passes over the Hindo Coosh, though not the highest, are 
very formidable : there are six from Cabul to the plains of Tur- 
Idstan ; and so deep and so much enclosed are the defiles, that 
Sir Alexander Burnes never could obtain an observation of the 
pole-star in the whole journey from Barmeean till within thirty 
miles of Turkistan. 

Most of the passes over the Himalaya are but little lower than 
the top of Mont Blanc : many are higher, especially near the 
Sutlej, where they are from 18,000 to 19,000 feet high; and 
that north-east of Khoonawur is 20,000 feet above the level of 
the sea — the highest that has been attempted. All are terrific, 
and the fatigue and suffering from the rarity of the air in the last 
500 feet is not to be described. Animals are as much distressed 
as human beings, and many die ; thousands of birds perish from 
the violence of the wind, the drifting snow is often fatal to travel- 
lers, and violent thunderstorms add to the horror of the journey. 
The Niti Pass, by which Mr. Moorcroft ascended to the sacred 
lake of Manasa, in Tibet, is tremendous ; he and his guide had 
not only to walk barefooted, from the risk of slipping, but they 
were obliged to creep along the most frightful chasms, holding 
by twigs and tufts of grass, and sometimes thej?' crossed deep and 
awful crevices on a branch of a tree, or on loose stones thrown 
across. Yet these are the thoroughfares for commerce in the 
Himalaya, never repaired nor susceptible of improvement from 
frequent landslips and torrents. 

The loftiest peaks being bare of snow gives great variety of 
colour and beauty to the scenery, which in these passes is at all 
times magnificent. During the day, the stupendous size of the 
mountains, their interminable extent, the variety and sharpness 
of their forms, and, above all, the tender clearness of their distant 
outline melting into the pale blue sky, contrasted with the deep 
azure above, is described as a scene of wild and wonderful beauty. 
At midnight, when myriads of stars sparkle in the black sky, 
and the pure blue of the mountains looks deeper still below the 
pale white gleam of the earth and snow-light, the effect is of 



TEMPERATURES OF THE HIMALAYA. 63 

unparalleled solemnity, and no language can describe the splen- 
dour of the sunbeams at daybreak streaming between the high 
peaks, and throwing their gigantic shadows on the mountains 
below. There, far above the habitation of man, no living thing 
exists, no sound is heard ; the very echo of the traveller's foot- 
steps .startles him in the awful solitude and silence that reigns in 
these august dwellings of everlasting snow. 

Nature has in mercy mitigated the intense rigour of the cold 
in these high lands in a degree unexampled in other mountainous 
regions. The climate is mild, the valleys are verdant and inhab- 
ited, corn and fruit ripen at elevations which in other countries— 
eveu under the equator — would be buried in permanent snow. 

It is also a peculiarity in these mountains that the higher the 
range the higher likev/ise is the limit of snow and vegetation. 
On the southern slopes of the first range, Mr. Gerard found culti- 
vation 10,000 feet above the sea, though it was often necessary 
to reap the corn still green and unripe ; while in Chinese Tartary 
good crops are raised 16,000 feet above the sea. Captain Gerard 
saw pasture and low bushes up to 17,009 feet; and corn as high 
as even 18,544 feet, which is 2784 feet higher than the top of ' 
Mont Blanc, and 1279 feet above the snow-hne in the province 
of Q,uito under the equator. Birch-trees with tall stems grow at 
the elevation of 14,068 feet, and the vine and other fruits thrive 
in the valleys of these high plains. The temperature of the 
earth probably has some influence on the vegetation : as many 
hot springs exist in the Himalaya at great heights, there must be 
a source of heat below these mountains, which in some places 
comes near the surface, and possibly may be connected with the 
volcanic fires in the central chains of the table-land. Hot springs 
abound in the valley of Jumnotra ; and as it is well known that 
many plants thrive in very cold air if their roots are well pro- 
tected, it may be the cause of pine-trees thriving at great eleva- 
tions in that valley, and of the splendid forests of the deodar, a 
species of cypress that grows to gigantic size even in the snow. 

According to Captain and Mr. Gerard, the line of perpetual 
congelation is at an elevation of only 12,981 feet on the southern 
slopes of the Himalaya ; while on the northern side, or rather on 
the peaks which rise above the table-land, the limit is 16,620 feet ; 
but the mean height of the table-land of Tibet, and the relative 
elevation of the line of perpetual snow on the two declivities of 
the Himalaya, require to be better investigated. The greater 
elevation of the snow-line on the northern side is the joint result 
of the serenity of the sky, the less frequent formation of snow in 
very cold dry air, and the radiation of heat from the neighbouring 
plains, which, being so near, have much greater effect on the 
temperature than the warmer but more distant plains on the 



64 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

south. There are fewer glaciers in the Asiatic mountains than 
might have been expected from the great mass of snow ; they are 
chiefly on the Thibetian side of the Himalaya, and on the Kuen- 
lun. There is a very large one at the source of the Indus, and 
another at the source of the Ganges, on the southern face of the 
Himalaya. 

Various secondary chains of great length detach themselves 
from the eastern extremity of the Himalaya, or rather the vast 
knot of mountains, near the sources of the Brahmapootra, in the 
Chinese province of Yun-nan, which is a terra incognita ; their 
origin, therefore, is unknown. But in Upper Assam they run 
cross to the equatorial system of Asiatic mountains, and, extend- 
ing in a southerly but diverging direction, they spread like the 
spokes of a fan through the countries east of the Ganges and the 
Indo-Chinese peninsula, leaving large and fertile kingdoms be- 
tween them. The Birmano-Siamese chain is the most extensive, 
reaching to Cape Romania, at the southern extremity of the Malay 
peninsula, the most southerly point of the Asiatic continent ; it 
may be traced through the island of Sumatra parallel to the coast, 
and also in the islands of Banca and Biliton, where it ends. 

Another range, called the Laos-Siamese chain, forms the eastern 
boundary of the kingdom of Siam, and the Annamatic chain, from 
the same origin, separates the empire of Annam from Tonquin 
and Cochin China. 

These shghtly diverging lines of mountains yield gold, silver, 
tin of the best quality and in great plenty, almost on the surface, 
and precious stones, as rubies and sapphires. Mountains in low 
latitudes have nothing of the severe character of those in less 
favoured climes. Magnificent forests reach their summit ; spices, 
dyes of brilliant tints, medicinal and odoriferous plants, clothe 
their declivities ; and in the low grounds the fruits of India and 
China grow in perfection, in a soil which yields three crops of 
grain in the year. 

The crest of the Himalaya is of stratified crystalline rocks, 
especially gneiss, with large granitic veins, and beds of quartz of 
huge magnitude. The zone between 15,000 and 18,000 feet 
above the level of the sea is of Silurian strata ; granite is most 
frequent at the base, and probably forms the foundation of the 
chain. Strata of comparatively modern date occur at great ele- 
vations. The sedimentary formations, prevailing also on the 
acclivities of the Alps and Apennines, show that the epochs of 
elevation in parts of the earth widely remote from one another, if 
not simultaneous, were at least not very different. There can be 
no doubt that very great geological changes have taken place at 
a comparatively recent period in the Himalaya, and through an 
extensive part of the Asiatic continent. 



THE ALTAI CHAIN. 65 

The Altai' mountains, which form the northern margin of the 
table-land, are unconnected with the Ural chain : they are sepa- 
rated from it by 400 miles of a low marshy country, part of the 
steppe of the Kirghiz, and by the Dalai mountains, a low range 
never above 2000 feet high, which runs between the 64th meridian 
and the left bank of the Irtish. The Altai chain rises on the 
right bank of that river, at the north-west angle of the table-land, 
and extends in a serpentine line to the Pacific, south of the Gulf 
of Okhotzk, dividing the high lands of Tartary and China from the 
wastes of Asiatic Siberia. Under various names, its branches skirt 
the north-west side of the Gulf of Okhotzk, and thence stretching 
to Behring's Straits, it ends at Eastern Cape, the most eastern 
extremity of the old continent, the whole length of the chain 
being 4500 miles, The breadth of this chain varies from 400 to 
1000 miles, but towards the 105th meridian it is contracted to 
about 150 by a projection of the desert of the Great Gobi. Its 
height bears no proportion to its length and breadth. The Altai, 
the only part of the chain properly so called, can only be regarded 
as a succession of terraces of a swelling outline, descending by 
steps from the table-land, and ending in the promontories of the 
Siberian plains. There are numerous large lakes on these ter- 
races and in the valleys, as in the mountain systems of Europe. 
The general form of this part of the chain is monotonous from 
the prevalence of straight hnes and smooth rounded outlines — 
long ridges with flattened summits, or small table-lands not more 
than 6000 feet high, which rarely attain the line of perpetual 
congelation : snow, however, is permanent on the Korgon table- 
land, 9900 feet above the sea, supposed to be the culminating 
point of this part of the chain. These table-lands bear a strong 
resemblance to those in the Scandinavian mountains in baldness 
and sterility, but their flanks are clothed with forests, verdant 
meadows, and pastoral valleys. 

East of the H6th meridian this region of low mountains splits 
into three branches, enclosing longitudinal valleys for 450 miles. 
The Sayansk and Zongnou mountains, which are the northern 
and central branches, form a mountain-knot nearly as large as 
England, which projects like a huge promontory on the Siberian 
plains^ west of Lake Baikal, and is celebrated for the richness of 
its mines. The third branch, which is the Ulangomula, lies 
south of Lake Oubsa. The principal part of the Baikal group is 500 
miles long, from 10 to 60 wide, high and snow-capped, and said 
to be without glaciers. It flanks lake Baikal on the north, the 
largest of Alpine lakes, so embedded in a knot of mountains, 
partly granitic, partly volcanic, that rocks and pillars of granite 

23 Johnston's Physical Atlas. 



66 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

rises from its bed. The mountains south of the lake are but the 
face of the table-land ; a traveller ascending them finds himself at 
once in the desert of Gobi, which stretches in unbroken sadness 
to the great wall of China. 

The Daouria mountains, a volcanic portion of the Altai, which 
borders the table-land on the north-east, follow the Baikal chain ; 
and farther east, at the sources of the Aldan, the Altai range takes 
the name of the Yablonnoi Khrebet, and stretches south of the 
Gulf of Okhotzk to the coast of the Pacific opposite to the island 
of SaghaHan ; while another part, 1000 miles broad, fills the space 
between the Gulf of Okhotzk and the river Lena, and then, bend- 
ing to the north-east, ends in the peninsula of Kamtchatka. Be- 
tween the western end of Lake Baikal and the Yablonnoi Khrebet 
the mountain-chains are parallel, and extend from the W.S.W. to 
the E.N E., which is the general direction of the high lands in 
the most easterly regions of Asia. 

A great part of the Altai chain is unknown to Europeans ; the 
innumerable branches that penetrate the Chinese empire are com- 
pletely so: those belonging to Russia abound in a great variety 
of precious and rare metals and minerals — silver, copper, and 
iron. In the Yablonnoi range, and other parts, there are whole 
mountains of porphyry, with red and green jasper; coal is also 
found; and in a branch of the Altai between the rivers Obi and 
Yennissei there are mines of coal which, having been set on fire 
by lightning, have continued to burn for more than a century. 
The Siberian mountains far surpass the Andes in the richness of 
their gold mines. The eastern flank of the Ural chain, and some 
of the northern spurs of the Altai', have furnished a vast quantity 
of gold, but a region as large as France has lately been discovered 
in Siberia covered with the richest gold alluvium, lying above 
rocks abounding in that precious metal. The mines of the Ural 
and Altai are situated principally in metamorphic rocks, adjacent 
to the greenstones, syenites, and serpentines that have caused 
their change ; and as the same formation prevails throughout the 
greater part of the Altai and Aldan chains almost to Kamtchatka, 
there is every reason to believe that the whole of that vast region 
is auriferous : besides, as many of the northern oflsets of the Altai 
are particularly rich, it may be concluded that the southern 
branches in the Chinese empire are equally so. Thus, Southern 
Siberia and Chinese Tartary form an auriferous district, probably 
greater in area than all Europe, which extends even to our 
dominions in Hindostan, where the formations containing gold are 
unexplored.29 

The sedimentary deposits in this extensive mountain-range are 

^ Sir Roderick I. Murchison. 



TABLE-LAND OF TIBET. 67 

more ancient than the grnnite, syenite, and porphyries : conse- 
quently these igneous rocks have not here formed part of the 
original crust of the globe. Rocks of the Palseozoic series occupy 
the greater part of the Altai', and probably there are none more 
modern. There are no volcanic rocks, properly speaking, ancient 
or modern, west of the Yenissei, but they abound to the east of 
that river, even to Kamtchatka, which is full of them. 

The physical characters and the fossil remains of this extensive 
mountain system have little relation with the geological fornnations 
of Europe and America. Eastern Siberia seems even to form an 
insulated district by itself, and that part between the town of 
Yakoutzk and the mouth of the Lena appears to have been raised 
at a later period than the part of Siberia stretching westward to 
the Sayansk mountains; moreover, the elevation of the western 
part of the Altai was probably contemporaneous with that of the 
Ural mountains. ^° On the whole, the chains in the direction of 
parallels of latitude in the Old Continent are much more numerous 
and extensive than those in the meridians ; and as they He chiefly 
towards the equator, the internal forces that raised them were 
probably modified by the rotation of the earth. 

The table-land of Tibet is only 4000 feet above the sea towards 
the north, but it rises in Little Tibet to between 1 1,000 and 12,000 
feet. The Kuen-lun, the most southerly of the two diagonal 
mountain-chains that cross the table-land, begins at the Hindoo 
Coosh, in latitude 35° 30', being, in fact, a branch of that chain, 
and extends eastward in two branches, which surround the lake 
Tengri-Nor, and again unite in the K'han of eastern Tibet. The 
most southerly of the two branches, known as the Ice Mountains, 
or Kara-Korum of the natives, maintains a curved course parallel 
to the Himalaya, and then bends north towards the Kuen-lun, 
which pursues a more direct line across the table-land. Chains 
more or less connected with these form an elevated mountain 
plain round Lake Koko-Nor, nearly in the centre of the table- 
land, from whence those immense mountain-ranges diverge, which 
render the south-western provinces of China the most elevated 
region on earth. The country of Tibet lying between the Hima- 
laya and the Kuen-lun consists of rocky mountainous ridges, ex- 
tending from N.W. to S.E., separated by long valleys, in which 
flow the upper courses of the Brahmapootra, Sutlej, and Indus. 
According to Mr. Moorcroft, the sacred lake Manasa, in Great 
Tibet, and the surrounding country, is 17,000 feet above the sea, 

30 From the observations of Sir Roderick Murchison, M. Middendorf, 
M. de Verneuil, and Count Keyserhng, it appears also that the low land 
of Siberia has been extended since the existing species of shell-fish 
inhabited the northern seas; a circumstance that must have rendered 
the Siberian climate still more severe, and materially affected that of 
the northern parts of Europe and Asia. 



68 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

which is 1240 feet higher than Mont Blanc. In this elevated 
region wheat and barley grow, and many of the fruits of Southern 
Europe ripen. The city of H'Lassa, in eastern Tibet, the resi- 
dence of the Grand Lama, is surrounded by vineyards, and is 
called by the Chinese the "Realm of Pleasure." There are 
some trees in this country ; but the ground in. cultivation bears 
a small proportion to the grassy steppes, which extend in endless 
monotony, grazed by thousands of the shawl-wool goats, sheep, 
and cattle. There are many lakes in the table-land : some in 
Ladak contain borax — a salt very useful in the arts, found only 
here, at Monte Cerboliti in Tuscany, and in one of the Lipari 
islands. 

In summer the sun is powerful at mid-day, the air is of the 
purest transparency, and the azure of the sky so deep that it 
seems black as in the darkest night. The rising moon does not 
enlighten the atmosphere, no warning radiance announces her 
approach, till her limb touches the horizon, and the stars shine 
with the distinctness and brilliancy of suns. In southern Tibet 
the verdure is confined to favoured spots; the bleak mountains 
and high plains are sternly gloomy — a scene of barrenness not to 
be conceived. Solitude reigns in these dreary wastes, where 
there is not a tree, nor even a shrub to be seen of more than a 
few inches high. The scanty, short-lived verdure vanishes in 
October; the country then looks as if fire had passed over it, and 
cutting dry winds blow with irresistible fury, howhng in the bare 
mountains, whirling the snow through the air, and freezing to 
death the unfortunate traveller benighted in their defiles. 

Yarkand and Khotan, provinces of Chinese Tartary, which lie 
beyond the two diagonal chains, are less elevated and more fertile 
than Tibet ; yet it is so cold in winter that the river Yarkiang is 
frozen for three months. They are watered by five rivers, and 
contain several large cities ; Yarkand, the most considerable of 
these, is the emporium of commerce between Tibet, Turkistan, 
China, and Russia. Gold, rubies, silk, and other productions are 
exported. 

The Tartar range of the Thian-Shan is very high; the Bogda 
Oola, or " Holy Mountain," near Lake Lob, its highest point, is 
always covered with snow, and it has two active volcanoes, one 
on each side. This range runs along the 42d parallel of north 
latitude, forming at its western extremity a mountain-knot with 
the Beloot Tagh, in the centre of which lies the small table-land 
of Pamer, 15,600 feet high, called by the natives the " Roof of the 
World." Its remarkable elevation was first described by the 
celebrated Venetian traveller Marco Polo, six centuries ago. The 
Oxus originates in a glacier of the Pooshtee Khur, a peak of the 
Beloot Tagh near the plain of Pamer ; the lake Sir-i.-Kol is here 
the source of the river of Yarkand; and ihe Kokan also rises in 



SCANDINAVIAN MOUNTAINS. 69 

the same plain, which is intensely cold in winter, and in summer 
is alive with flocks of sheep and goats. Snow lies deep on the 
Thian-Shan range in winter, yet little falls on the plains on account 
of the dryness of the air. There are only two or three showers 
annually on these mountains, for a very short time, and the drops 
are so minute as scarcely to wet the ground, yet the streams from 
them suffice for irrigation. 

Zungary, or Mongolia, the country between the Thian-Shan 
and the Altai, is hardly known, further than that its grassy 
steppes, intersected by many lakes and offsets from the Altai, are 
the pasture-grounds of the wondering Kirghiz. 

The remarkable feature of the table-land is the desert of the 
Great Gobi, which occupies an area of 300,000 square miles in 
its eastern extremity, interrupted only by a few spots of pasture 
and low bushes. Wide tracts are flat, and covered wiih small 
stones or sand, and widely separated from one another are low 
hills destitute of wood and water ; its general elevation is 4220 
feet above the sea, but it is intersected from west to east by a 
depressed valley aptly named Shamo, or the "Sea of Sand," 
which is also mixed with salt. West from it lies the Han-Hai, 
the "Dry Sea," a barren plain of shifting sand blown into high 
ridges. Here, as in all deserts, the summer sun is scorching, no 
rain falls, and when thick fog occurs it is only the precursor of 
fierce winds. All the plains of Mongoha are intensely cold in 
winter, because the hills to the north are too low to screen them 
from the polar blast, and, being higher than the Siberian deserts, 
they are bitterly cold ; no month in the year is free from frost and 
snow, yet it is not deep enough to prevent cattle from finding 
pasture. Sandy deserts like that of the Great Gobi occupy much 
of the country south of the Chinese branches of the Altai. 

Such is the stupendous zone of high land that girds the old 
continent throughout its whole length. In the extensive plains 
on each side of it several independent mountain systems rise, 
though much inferior to it in extent and height. 



CHAPTER V 

Secondary Mountain Systems of the Great Continent — That of Scandi- 
navia—Great Britain and Ireland— The Ural Mountains— The Great 
Northern Plain. 

The great northern plain is broken by two masses of high land, 
in every respect inferior to those described ; they are the Scandi- 



70 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

navian sj^'stem and the Ural mountains, the arbitrary limit between 
Europe arid Asia. 

The range of primary mountains which has given its form to 
the Scandinavian peninsula begins at Cape Lindesnaes, the most 
southerly point of Norway, and, after running along its western 
coast 1000 miles in a north-easterly direction, ends at Cape Nord 
Kyn, on the Polar Ocean, the extremity of Europe. The highest 
elevation of this chain is not more than 8412 feet. It has been 
compared to a great wave or billow, rising gradually from the east, 
which, after having formed a crest, falls perpendicularly into the 
sea in the west. There are 3696 square miles of this peninsula 
above the line of perpetual snow. 

The southern portion of the chain consists of ridges following 
the general direction of the range, 150 miles broad. At the dis- 
tance of 360 miles from Cape Lindesnaes, the mountains form a 
single elevated mass, terminated by a table-land which maintains 
an altitude of 4500 feet for 100 miles. It slopes towards the east, 
and plunges at once in high precipices into a deep sea on the west. 

The surface is barren, marshy, and bristled with peaks ; besides 
an area of 600 square leagues is occupied by the Snae Braen, the 
greatest mass of perpetual snow and glaciers on the continent of 
Europe. A prominent cluster of mountains follows, from whence 
a single chain, 25 miles broad, maintains an uninterrupted line to 
the island of Megaree, where it terminates its visible career in 
North Cape, a huge barren rock perpetually lashed by the surge 
of the Polar Ocean, but from the correspondence in geological 
structure it must be continued under the sea to where it reappears, 
according to M. Boue, in the schistose rocks of Spitzbergen. Off- 
sets from these mountains cover Finland and the low rocky table- 
land of Lapland : the valleys and countries along the eastern side 
of the chain abound in forests and Alpine lakes. 

The iron-bound coast of Norway is a continued series of rocky 
islands, capes, promontories, and precipitous cliffs, rent into chasms 
which penetrate miles into the heart of the mountains. These 
chasms, or fiords, are either partly or entirely filled by arms of the 
sea; in the former case, the shores are fertile and inhabited, and 
the whole country abounds in the most picturesque scenery. Fiords 
are not peculiar to the coast of Norway ; they are even more ex- 
tensive in Greenland and Iceland, and of a more stern character, 
overhung by snow-clad rocks and glaciers. 

As the Scandinavian mountains, those of Feroe, Britain, Ireland, 
and the north-eastern parts of Iceland, have a similar character, 
and follow the same general directions, they must have been ele- 
vated by forces acting in parallel hues, and therefore may be re- 
garded as belonging to the same system. 

The Feroe islands, due west from Norway, rise at once in a 



GEOLOGY OF BRITISH MOUNTAINS. 71 

table-land 2000 feet high, bounded by precipitous cliffs, which dip 
into the ocean- 

The rocky islands of Zetland, and those of Orkney, form part 
of the mountain system of Scotland ; the Orkney islands have evi- 
dently been separated from the mainland by the Pentland Firth, 
where the currents run with prodigious violence. The north- 
western part of Scotland is a table-land from 1000 to 2000 feet high, 
which ends abruptly in the sea, covered with heath, peat-mosses, 
and pasture. The general direction of the Scottish mountains, 
like those of Scandinavia, is from north-east to south-west, divided 
by a long line of lakes in the same direction, extending from the 
Moray Firth completely across the island to south of the island of 
Mull. Lakes of the most picturesque beauty abound among the 
Scottish mountains. The Grampian hills, with their offsets and 
some low ranges, fill the greater part of Scotland north of the Clyde 
and Forth. Ben Nevis, only 4374 feet above the sea, is the high- 
est hill in the British islands. 

The east coast of Scotland is generally bleak, though in many 
parts it is extremely fertile, and may be cited as a model of good 
cultivation; and the midland and southern counties are not infe- 
rior either in the quality of the soil or the excellence of the hus- 
bandry. To the west the country is wildly picturesque ; the coast 
of the Atlantic, penetrated by the sea, which is covered with islands, 
bears a strong resemblance to that of Norway. 

There cannot be a doubt that the Hebrides formed part of the 
mainland at some remote geological period, since they follow the 
direction of the mountain system in two parallel lines of rugged 
and imposing aspect, never exceeding the height of 3200 feet. 
The undulating country on the borders of Scotland becomes higher 
in the west of England and North Wales, where the hills are wild, 
but the valleys are cultivated like gardens, and the English lake- 
scenery is of the most gentle beauty. 

Evergreen Ireland is mostly a mountainous country, and opposes 
to the Atlantic storms an iron-bound coast of the wildest aspect; 
but it is rich in arable land and pasture, and possesses the most 
picturesque lake-scenery: indeed, freshwater lakes in the moun- 
tain, valleys, so pecuharly characteristic of the European system, 
are the great ornaments of the high lands of Britain. 

Various parts of the British islands were dry land while most 
of the continent of Europe was yet below the ancient ocean. The 
high land of Lammermuirand the Grampian hills in Scotland, and 
those of Cumberland in England, were raised before the Alps had 
begun to appear above the waves. In general, all the highest parts 
of the British mountains are of granite and stratified crystalline 
rocks. The primary fossiliferous strata are of immense thickness 
in Cumberland and in the north of Wales, and the old red sand- 



72 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

Stone, many hundred feet thick, stretches from sea to sea along 
the flanks of the Grampians. The coal strata are developed on a 
great scale in the south of Scotland and the north of England ; and 
examples of every formation, with the exception of the muschel- 
kalk, are to be found in these islands. Volcanic fires had been 
very active in early times, and nowhere is the columnar structure 
more beautifully exhibited than in Fingal's Cave and the Storr of 
Skye, in the Hebrides : and in the north of Ireland a base of 800 
square miles of mica-slate is covered with volcanic rocks, which 
end on the coast in the magnificent columns of the Giant's Cause- 
way. J A • • *u 

The Ural chain, the boundary between Europe and Asia, is the 
only interruption to the level of the great northern plain, and is 
altogether unconnected with and far separated from the Altai moun- 
tains by salt lakes, marshes, and deserts. The central ridge may 
be traced from between the Lake of Aral and the Caspian Sea to 
the northern extremity of Nova Zemlia, a distance of more than 
1700 miles; but as a chain it really begins on the right bank of 
the Ural river, at the steppes of the Kirghiz, about the 51st degree 
of north latitude, and runs due north in a long narrow ridge to the 
Karskaia Gulf, in the Polar Ocean, though it may be said to ter- 
minate in dreary rocks on the west side of Nova Zemha. Ihe 
Ural range is about the height of the mountains in the Black Forest 
or the Vosges; and, with few exceptions, it is wooded to the top, 
chiefly by the Pinus cembra. The immense mineral riches of 
these mountains— gold, platina, magnetic iron, and copper—he on 
the Siberian side, and mostly between the 54th and 60th degrees 
of north latitude: the only part that is colonized, and one of the 
most industrious and civiHzed regions of the Russian empire. To 
the south the chain is pastoral, about 100 miles broad, consisting 
of longitudinal rido-es, the highest of which does not exceed 3498 
feet : in this part diamonds are found. To the north of the mining 
district the narrow mural mass is covered with impenetrable forests 
and deep morasses, aUogether uninhabitable and unexplored. 
Throughout the Ural mountains there are neither precipices, trans- 
verse gorges, nor any of the characteristics of a high chain; the 
descent on both sides is so gentle that in many places it is dif- 
ficult to know where the plain begins ; and the road over the chain 
from Russia by Ekaterinburg is so low that it hardly seems to be 
a mountain-pass. The gentle descent and sluggishness of the 
streams produce extensive marshes along the Siberian base ol the 
range. To the arduous and enterprising researches of Sir Rod- 
erick Murchison we are indebted for almost all we know of these 
mountains : he found them on the western side to be composed of 
Silurian, Devonian, and carboniferous rocks, more or less altered 
and crystallized ; on the eastern declivity the mines are in meta- 



THE URAL CHAIN. 73 

morphic strata, mixed with rocks of igneous origin ; and the cen- 
tral axis is of quartzose and chloritic rocks. 

The great zone of high land which extends along the old conti- 
nent from the Atlantic to the shores of the Pacific Ocean divides 
the low lands into two very unequal parts. That to the north, only- 
broken by the Ural range of the Valdai table-land of still less ele- 
vation, stretches from the Thames or the British hills, and the east- 
ern bank of the Seine to Behring's Straits, including more than 
190° of longitude, and occupying an area of at least 4,500,000 
square greographical miles, which is a third more than all Europe. 
Thd greater part of it is perfectly level, with a few elevations and 
low hills, and in many places a dead level extends hundreds of 
miles. The country between the Carpathian and Ural mountains 
is a flat on which there is scarcel}^ a rise in 1500 miles ; and in 
the steppes of southern Russia and Siberia the extent of level 
ground is immense. The mean absolute height of the flat pro- 
vinces of France is 480 feet. Moscow, the highest point of the 
European plain, is also 480 feet high, from whence the land slopes 
imperceptibly to the sea both on the north and south, till it abso- 
lutely dips below its level. Holland, on one side, would be over- 
flowed, were it not for its dykes, and towards Astrakan the plain 
sinks still lower. With the exception of the plateau of Ust-Urt, 
of no great elevation, situated between the Caspian and Aral, and 
which is the extreme southern ridge of the Ural chain, the whole 
of that extensive country north and east of the Caspian Sea and 
around the Lake of Aral forms a vast cavity of 18,000 square 
leagues, all considerably below the level of the ocean; and the sur- 
face of the Caspian Sea itself, the lowest point, has a depression 
of rather more than 83 feet. 

The European part of the plain is highly cultivated, and very 
productive in the more civilized countries, in its western and mid- 
dle regions, and along the Baltic. The greatest amount of culti- 
vated land lies to the north of the watershed which stretches from 
the Carpathians to the centre of the Ural chain, yet there are large 
heaths which extend from theextremity of Jutland through Lune- 
bourg and Westphalia to Belgium. The land is of excellent quality 
to the south of it. Round Polkovaand Moscow there is an extent 
of the finest vegetable mould, equal in size to France and the 
Spanish peninsula together, which forms part of the High Steppe, 
and is mostly in a state of nature. 

A large portion of the great plain is pasture-land, and wide tracts 
are covered with natural forests, especially in Poland and Russia, 
where there are milhons of acres of pine, fir, and deciduous trees. 

The quantity of waste land in Europe is very great, and there 
are also many swamps. A morass as long as England extends 
from the 52d parallel of latitude, following the course of the river 
7 



74 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

Prepit, a branch of the Dnieper, which runs through its centre. 
There are swamps at the mouths of many of the sluggish rivers 
in Central Europe. They cover 1970 miles in Denmark, and 
mossy quagmires occur frequently in the more northerly parts. 

Towards the eastern extremity of Europe the great plain 
assumes the peculiar character of desert called a steppe, a word 
supposed to be of Tartar origin, signifying a level waste destitute 
of trees : hence the steppes may vary according to the nature of 
the soil. They commence in the river Dnieper, and extend along 
the shores of the Black Sea. They include all the country north 
and east of the Caspian lake and Independent Tartary ; and, 
passing between the Ural and Altai mountains, they may be said 
to occupy all the low lands of Siberia. Hundreds of leagues may 
be traversed east from the Dnieper without variation of scene. 
A dead level of thin but luxuriant pasture, bounded only by the 
horizon, day after day the same unbroken monotony fatigues the 
eye. Sometimes there is the appearance of a lake, which 
vanishes on approach, the phantom of atmospheric refraction. 
Horses and cattle beyond number give some animation to the 
scene, so long as the steppes are green ; but winter comes in 
October, and they then become a trackless field of spotless snow. 
Fearful storms rage, and the dry snow is driven by the gale with 
a violence which neither man nor animal can resist, while the sky 
is clear and the sun shines cold and bright above the earthly tur- 
moil. The contest between spring and winter is long and severe, 
for 

'■'■ Winter oft at once resumes the breeze. 
Chills the pale mora, and bids his driving sleets 
Deform the day, delightless." 

Yet when gentler gales succeed, and the waters run off in tor- 
rents through the channels which they cut in the soft ground, the 
earth is again verdant. The scorching summer's sun is as severe 
in its consequences in these wild regions as the winter's cold. In 
June the steppes are parched, no shower falls, nor does a drop of 
dew refresh the thirsty and rent earth. The sun rises and sets 
like a globe of fire, and during the day he is obscured by a thick 
mist from the evaporation. In some seasons the drought is exces- 
sive : the air is filled with dust in impalpable powder, the springs 
become dry, and cattle perish in thousands. Death triumphs 
over animal and vegetable nature, and desolation tracks the scene 
to the utmost verge of the horizon, a hideous wreck. 

Much of this country is covered by an excellent but thin soil, 
fit for corn, which grows luxuriantly wherever it has been tried ; 
but a stiff cold clay at a small distance below the surface kills 
every herb that has deep roots, and no plants thrive but those 



SIBERIAN DESERT. 75 

which can resist the extreme vicissitudes of climate. A very 
wide range is hopelessly barren. The country from the Caucasus, 
along the shores of the Black and Caspian Seas — a dead flat, 
twice the size of the British islands — is a desert destitute of fresh 
water. Saline efflorescences cover the surface like hoar-frost. 
Even the atmosphere and the dew are sahne, and many salt lakes 
in the neighbourhood of Astrakan furnish great quantities of com- 
mon salt and nitre. Sahne plants, with patches of verdure few 
and far between, are the only signs of vegetable life, but about 
Astrakan there is soil and cultivation. Some low hills occur in 
the country between the Caspian and the Lake of Aral, but it is 
mostly an ocean of shifting sand, often driven by appalling whirl- 
winds. 

Turkistan is a sandy desert, except on the banks of the Oxus 
and the Jaxartes, and as far on each side of them as canals con- 
vey the fertihzing waters. To the north, barrenness gives place 
to verdure between the river Ural and the terraces and mountains 
of Central Asia, where the steppes of the Kirghiz afford pasture 
to thousands of camels and cattle belonging to these wandering 
hordes. 

Siberia is either a dead level or undulating surface of more than 
7,000,000 of square miles between the North Pacific and the Ural 
mountains, the Polar Sea and the Altai range, whose terraces and 
offsets end in those plains, like headlands and promontories in the 
ocean. M. Middendorf, indeed, met with a chain of most deso- 
late mountains on the shores of the Polar Ocean, in the country of 
the Samoides ; and the almost inapproachable coast far to the east 
is unexplored. The mineral riches of the mountains have brought 
together a population who inhabit towns of considerable import- 
ance along the base of the Ural and Altai chains, where the 
ground yields good crops and pasture ; and there are forests on 
the undulations of the mountains and on the plains. There are 
many hundred square miles of rich black mould covered with trees 
and grass, uninhabited, between the river Tobal and the upper 
course of the Obi, within the limit where corn would grow ; but 
even this valuable soil is studded with small lakes of salt and fresh 
water, a chain of which, 300 miles long, skirts the base of the 
Ural mountains. 

North of the 62d parallel of latitude corn does not ripen on 
account of the biting blasts from the Icy Ocean, which sweep 
supreme over these unprotected wastes. In a higher latitude, 
even the interminable forests of gloomy fir are seen no more : all 
is a wide-spreading desolation of salt steppes, boundless swamps, 
and lakes of salt and fresh water. The cold is so intense there 
that the spongy soil is perpetually frozen to the depth of some 
hundred feet below the surface ; and the surface itself, not thawed 



76 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY, 

before the end of June, is again ice-bound by the middle of Sep- 
tember, and deep snow covers the ground nine or ten months in 
the year. Happily, gales of wind are not frequent during winter, 
but when they do occur no living thing ventures to face them. 
The Russian Admiral Wrangel, who travelled during the most 
intense cold from the mouth of the river Kolyma to Behring's 
Strait, gives an appalling account of these deserts. " Here end- 
less snows and ice-covered rocks bound the horizon, nature lies 
shrouded in all but perpetual winter, life is a constant conflict 
with privation and with the terrors of cold and hunger — the grave 
of nature, which contains only the bones of another world. The 
people, and even the snow smokes, and this evaporation is 
instantly changed into millions of needles of ice, which make a 
noise in the air like the sound of torn satin or thick silk. The 
reindeer take to the forest, or crowd together for heat, and the 
raven alone, the dark bird of winter, still cleaves the icy air with 
slow and heavy wing, leaving behind him a long line of thin 
vapour, marking the track of his solitary flight. The trunks of 
the thickest trees are rent with a loud noise, masses of rock are 
torn from their sites, the ground in the valleys is rent into yawn- 
ing fissures, from which the waters that are underneath rise, 
giving off" a cloud of vapour, and immediately become ice. The 
atmosphere becomes dense, and the glistening stars are dimmed. 
The dogs outside the huts of the Siberians burrow in the snow, 
and their howling, at intervals of six or eight hours, interrupts the 
general silence of wmter."^^ In many parts of Siberia, however, 
the sun, though long absent from these dismal regions, does not 
leave them to utter darkness. The extraordinary brilliancy of 
the stars, and the gleaming snowlight, produce a kind of twilight, 
which is augmented by the splendid coruscations of the aurora 
borealis. 

The scorching heat of the summer's sun produces a change 
like magic on the southern provinces of the Siberian wilderness. 
The snow is scarcely gone before the ground is covered with 
verdure, and flowers of various hues blossom, bear their seeds, 
and die in a few months, when Winter resumes his empire. A 
still shorter-lived vegetation scantily covers the plains in the far 
north, and, on the shores of the Icy Ocean, even reindeer-moss 
grows scantily. 



^^ In 1820, Admiral (then Lieutenant) Wrangel travelled from the 
mouth of the Kolyma to Behring's Straits on sledges drawn by dogs, 
and made a bold but vain attempt to reach the North pole. Lieutenant 
Anjou, at the same time, sailed from the mouth of the Jana river, 
reached 76^ degrees of north latitude, and passed round the group of 
the New Siberian Islands. 



THE SOUTHERN LOW LANDS. 77 

The abundance of fur-bearing animals in the less rigorous parts 
of the Siberian deserts has tempted the Russians to colonize and 
build towns on these frozen plains. Yakutsk, on the river Lena, 
in 62° r 30" N. lat., is probably the coldest town on the earth. 
The ground is perpetually frozen to the depth of more than 400 
feet, of which three feet only are- thawed in summer, when Fahr- 
enheit's thermometer is frequently 77° in the shade ; and as there 
is in some seasons no frost for lour months, larch forests cover the 
ground, and wheat and rye produce from fifteen to forty fold. In 
winter the cold is so intense that mercury is constantly frozen 
two months, and occasionally even three. 

In the northern parts of Europe the Silurian, Devonian, and 
carboniferous strata are widely developed, and more to the south 
they are folloAved in ascending order by immense tracts of the 
higher series of secondary rocks, abounding in the huge monsters 
of a former world. Very large and interesting tertiary basins fill 
the ancient hollows in many parts of the plain, which are crowded 
with the remains of animals that no longer exists. Of these, the 
most important are the London, Paris, Vienna, and Moscow 
basins, with many others in the north of Germany and Russia ; 
and alluvial soil covers the greater part of the plain. In the east. 
Sir Roderick Murchison has determined the boundary of a region 
twice as large as France, extending from the Polar Ocean to the 
southern steppes, and from beyond the V^olga to the fianks of the 
Ural chain, which consists of a red deposit of sand and marl, full 
of copper in grains, belonging to the Permian system. This, and 
the immense tract of black loam already mentioned, are among the 
principal features of Eastern Europe. 



CHAPTER VI. 

The Southern Low Lands of the Great Continent, with their Secondary 
Table-Lands and Mountains. 

The lowlands to the south of the great mountain girdle of the old 
continent are much broken by its offsets, by separate groups of 
mountains, and still more by the deep indentation of bays and 
large seas. Situate in lower latitudes, and sheltered by moun- 
tains from the cutting Siberian winds, these plains are of a more 
tropical character than those to the north ; but they are strikingly 
contrasted in their different parts — either rich in all the exuber- 
ance that heat, moisture, and soil can produce, or covered by 
7# 



78 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

wastes of bare sand — in the most advanced state of cultivation, or 
in the wildest garb of nature. 

The barren parts of the low lands lying between the eastern 
shores of China and the Indus bear a small proportion to the 
riches of a soil vivified by tropical warmth and watered by the 
periodical inundations of the mighty rivers that burst from the icy 
caverns of Tibet and the Himalaya. On the contrary, the favoured 
regions in that part of the low lands lying between the Persian 
Gulf, the Euphrates, and the Atlas mountains, are small when 
compared with the immense expanse of the Arabian and African 
deserts, scorched and calcined by an equatorial sun. The bless- 
ing of a mountain-zone, pouring out its everlasting treasures of 
moisture, the life-blood of the soil, is nowhere more strikingly 
exhibited than in the contrast formed by these two regions of the 
globe. 

The Tartar country of Mandshur, watered by the river Amour, 
but little known to Europeans, lies immediately south of the 
Yablonnoi branch of the Altai chain, and consequently partakes 
of the desert aspect of Siberia, and, in its northern parts, even of 
the Great Gobi. It is partly intersected by mountains, and 
covered by dense forests ; nevertheless, oats grow in the plains, 
and even wheat in sheltered places. Towards Corea the country 
is more fertile ; in that peninsula there are cultivated plains at 
the base of its central mountain-range. 

China is the most productive country on the face of the earth ; 
an alluvial plain of 210,000 square miles, formed by one of the 
most extensive river systems in the old world, occupies its eastern 
part. This plain, seven times the size of Lombardy, is no less 
fertile, and perfectly irrigated by canals. The Great Canal tra- 
verses the eastern part of the plain for 700 miles, of which 500 
are in a straight line of considerable breadth, with a current in 
the greater part of it. Most part of the plain is in rice and 
garden ground, the whole cultivated with the spade. The tea- 
plant grows on a low range of hills between the 30th and 32d 
parallels of north latitude, an offset from the Pe-Hng chain. The 
cold in winter is much greater than in the corresponding European 
latitudes, and the heat in summer is proportionally excessive. 

The Indo-Chinese peninsula, lying between China and the 
river Brahmapootra, has an area of 77,700 square miles, and 
projects 1500 miles into the ocean. The plains lying -between 
the offsets descending from the east end of the Himalaya, and 
which divide it longitudinally, as before mentioned, are very 
extensive. The Birman empire alone, which occupies the val- 
ley of the Irrawaddy, is said to be as large as France, and not 
less fertile, especially its southern part, which is the granary of 
the empire. Magnificent rivers intersect the alluvial plains, whose 



VALLEY OF THE GANGES. 79 

soil they have brought down from the table-land of Tibet, and 
still continue to deposit in great quantities in the deltas at their 
mouths. 

The plains of Hindostan extend 2000 miles along the southern 
slope of the Himalaya and Hindoo Coosh, between the Brahma- 
pootra and the Indus, and terminate on the south in the Bay of 
Bengal, the table-land of the Deccan, and the Indian Ocean — a 
country embracing in its range every variety of climate from 
tropical heat and moisture to the genial temperature of southern 
Europe. 

The valley of the Ganges is one of the richest on the globe, 
and contains a greater extent of vegetable mould, and of land 
under cultivation, than any other country in this continent, ex- 
cept perhaps the Chinese empire. In its upper part, Sirhind 
and Delhi, the seat of the ancient Mogul empire, still rich in 
splendid specimens of Indian art, are partly arid, although in the 
latter there is fertile soil. The country is beautiful where the 
Jumna and other streams unite to form the Ganges. These rivers 
are often hemmed in by rocks and high banks, which in a great 
measure prevent the periodical overflow of the waters ; this, 
however, is compensated by the coolness and moisture of the 
climate. The land gradually improves towards the east, as it 
becomes more flat, till at last there is not a stone to be seen for 
hundreds of miles down to the Gulf of Bengal. Wheat and 
other European grain are produced in the upper part of this 
magnificent valley, while in the south every variety of Indian 
fruit, rice, cotton, indigo, opium, and sugar, are the staple com- 
modities. The ascent of the plain of the Ganges from the Bay 
of Bengal is so gradual that Saharampore, nearly at the foot of 
the Himalaya, is only 1100 feet above the level of Calcutta; the 
consequence of which is that the Ganges and Brahmapootra, with 
their branches, in the rainy season between June and September, 
lay Bengal under water for hundreds of miles in every direction, 
like a great sea. When the water subsides, the plains are verdant 
with rice and other grain ; but when harvest is over, and the heat 
is intense, the scene is changed — the country, divested of its 
beauty, becomes parched and dusty everywhere, except in the 
extensive jungles. It has been estimated that one-third of the 
British territory in India is covered with these rank marshy tracts. 
It was estimated by Lord Cornwallis, and confirmed by Mr. Cole- 
brooke, that a third of the East India Company's territory is 
jungle. 

The peninsula of Hindostan is occupied by the triangular- 
shaped lable-land of the Deccan, which is much lower, and 
totally unconnected with the table-land of Tibet. It has the 
primary ranges of the Ghauts on the east and west, and the 



so PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

Vendhya mountains on the north, sloping by successive levels to 
the plains of Hindostan Proper. A trace of the general equatorial 
direction of the Asiatic high land is still perceptible in the Vendhya 
mountains, sometimes called the central chain of India, and in the 
Saulpoora range to the south, both being nearly parallel to the 
Himalaya.^2 The surface of the Deccan between 3000 and 4000 
feet above the sea is a combination of plains, ridges of rock, and 
insulated flat-topped hills, which are numerous, especially in its 
north-eastern parts. These sohtary and almost inaccessible 
heights rise abruptly from the plains, with all but perpendicular 
sides, which can only be scaled by steps cut in the rock, or by 
very dangerous paths. Many are fortified, and were the strong- 
holds of the natives, but they never have withstood the deter- 
mined intrepidity of British soldiers. 

The peninsula terminates with the table-land of the Mysore, 
7000 feet above the sea, surrounded by the Nilgherry or Blue 
Mountains, which rise 2941 feet higher. 

The base of this plateau, and indeed of all the Deccan is granite, 
and there are also many syenitic and trap rocks, with abundance 
of primary and secondary fossiliferous strata. Though possessing 
the diamond-mines of Golconda, the true riches of the country 
consist in its vegetable mould, which in the Mysore is 100 feet 
thick, an inexhaustible source of fertility. The sea-coasts on the 
two sides of the peninsula are essentially different : that of Malabar 
on the western side is rocky, but in many parts well cultivated, 
and its mountains covered with forests form a continuous wall of 
very simple structure, 510 miles long, and rather more than 5000 
feet high. On the coast of Coromandel the mountains are bare, 
lower, frequently interrupted, and the wide maritime plains are 
for the most part parched. 

The island of Ceylon, nearly equal in extent to Ireland, is 
almost joined to the southern extremity of the peninsula by sand- 
banks and small islands, between which the water is only six 
feet deep in spring tides. The Sanscrit name of the "Res- 
plendent" may convey some idea of this island, rich and fertile 
in soil, adorned by lofty mountains, numerous streams, and prim- 
eval forests; in addition to which it is rich in precious stones, 
and has the pearl oyster on its coast. 

The Asiatic low lands are continued westward from the Indian 
peninsula by the Punjab and the great Indian desert. "The Pun- 
jab, or country of the five rivers," lies at the base of the Hindoo 
Coosh. Its most nothern part consists of fertile terraces highly 
cultivated, and valleys at the foot of the mountains. It is very 
productive in the plain within the limits of the periodical inun- 

32 Johnston's Physical Atlas. 



THE PENINSULA OF ARABIA. 81 

datlons of the rivers, and where it is watered by canals ; in other 
parts it is pastoral. Lahore occupies the chief part of the Pun- 
jab, and the city of that name on the Indus, once the rival of 
Delhi, lies on the high road from Persia to India, and was made 
the capital of the kingdom by Runjeet Sing. The valley of the 
Indus throughout partakes of the character of the Punjab; it is 
fertile only where it is within reach of water ; much of it is deha, 
which is occupied by rice-grounds ; the rest is pasture, or sterile 
salt marshes. 

South of the Punjab, and between the fertile plains of Hindos- 
tan and the left bank of the Indus, lies the great Indian desert, 
which is about 400 miles broad, and becomes more and more arid 
as it approaches the river. It consists of a hard clay, covered 
with shifting sand, driven into high waves by the w4nd, with 
some parts that are verdant after the rains. In the province of 
Cutch, south of the desert, a space of 7000 square miles, known 
as the Run of Cutch, is alternately a sandy desert and an inland 
sea. In April the waves of the sea are driven over it by the 
prevailing winds, leaving only a few grassy eminences, the resort 
of wild asses. The desert of Mekram, an equally barren tract, 
extends along the Gulf of Oman from the mouths of the Indus 
to the Persian Gulf: in some places, however, it produces the 
Indian palm and the aromatic shrubs of Arabia Felix. It was 
the line followed by Alexander the Great returning with his army 
from India. 

The scathed shores of the Arabian Gulf, where not a blade of 
grass freshens the arid sands, and the uncultivated valleys of the 
Euphrates and Tigris, separate Asia from Arabia and Africa, the 
most desert regions in the old world. 

The peninsula of Arabia, divided into two parts by the Tropic 
of Cancer, is about four times the size of France. No rivers, and 
few streams or springs nourish the thirsty land, whose barren 
sands are scorched by a fierce sun. The central part is a table- 
land of moderate height, which, however, is said to have an 
elevation of 8000 feet in the province of Haudramaut. To the 
south of the tropic it is an almost interminable ocean of drifting 
sand, wafted in clouds by the gale, and dreaded even by the 
w^andering Bedouin. At wide intervals, long narrow depressions 
cheer the eye with brushwood and verdure. More to the north, 
mountains and hills cross the peninsula from S.E. to N.W., en- 
closing cultivated and fine pastoral valleys adorned by grooves of 
the date-palm and aromatic shrubs. Desolation once more resumes 
its domain where the table-land sinks into the Syrian desert, and 
throughout the rest of its circumference it descends in terraces or 
parallel ranges of mountains and hills to a flat sandy coast from 
30 to 100 miles wide, which surrounds the greater part of the 



82 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

peninsula, from the mouths of the Euphrates to the Isthmus of 
Suez. The hills come close to the beach in the province of 
Oman, which is traversed by chains, and broken into piles of 
arid mountains not more than 3500 feet high, with the exception 
of the Jebel Okkdar, which is 6000 feet above the sea, and is 
cleft by temporary streams and fertile valleys. Here the ground 
is cultivated and covered with verdure, and still farther south 
there is a line of oases fed by subterraneous springs, where the 
fruits common to Persia, India and Arabia, are produced. 

The south-eastern coast is scarcely known, except towards the 
provinces of Haudramaut and Yemen or Arabia Felix, where 
ranges of mountains, some above 5000 feet high, line the coast, 
and in many places project into the ocean, sometimes forming 
excellent harbours, as that of Aden, which is protected by pro- 
jecting rocks. In the intervals there are towns and villages, cot- 
ton-plantations, date-groves, and cultivated ground. 

On the northern side of these granite ranges, w^here the table- 
land is 8000 feet above the sea, and along the edge of the desert 
of El Aklaj in Haudramaut, there is a tract of land so loose and 
so very fine, that a plummet was sunk in it by Baron Wrede to 
the depth of 860 feet without reaching the bottom. There is a 
tradition in the country that the Sabsean army of King Suffi 
perished in attempting to cross this desert. Arabia Felix, which 
merits its name, is the only part of that country with permanent 
streams, though they are small. Here also the mountains and 
fertile ground run far inland, producing grain, pasture, coffee, 
odoriferous plants, and gums. High cliffs line the shores of the 
Indian Ocean and the Strait of Bab-el-man-deb — ^"the Gate of 
Tears." The fertile country is continued a considerable way along 
the coast of the Red Sea, but the character of barrenness is resumed 
by degrees, till at length the hills and intervening terraces, on which 
Mecca and Medina, the holy cities of the Mahomedans, stand, are 
sterile wastes wherever springs do not water them. The blast of 
the desert, loaded with burning sand, sweeps over these parched 
regions. Mountains skirt the table-land to the north ; and the 
peninsula, between the Gulfs of Akabah and Suez on the Red 
Sea, the Eliath of Scripture, is filled by the mountain-group of 
Sinai and Horeb. Jebel Houra, Mount Sinai, on which Moses 
received the Ten Commandments, is 9030 feet high, surrounded 
by higher mountains, which are covered with snow in winter. 
The group of Sinai abounds in springs and verdure. At its 
northern extremity lies the desert of El-Teh, 70 miles long and 
30 broad, in which the Israelites wandered forty years. It is 
covered Avith long ranges of high rocks, of most repulsive aspect, 
rent into deep clefts only a few feet wide, hemmed in by walls of 
rock sometimes 1000 feet high, like the deserted streets of a 



SYRIAN MOUNTAINS. 83 

Cyclopean town. The journey from Sinai to Akabah, by the 
Wadee-el-Ain or Valley of the Spring, is perfectly magnificent, 
and the site of Petra itself is a tremendous confusion of black and 
brown mountains. It is a considerable basin closed in by rocks, 
with chasms and defiles in the precipices. The main street is 2 
miles long, and not more than from 10 to 30 feet wide, enclosed 
between perpendicular rocks from 100 to 700 feet high, which 
so nearly meet as to leave only a strip of sky. A stream runs 
through the street which must once have been a considerable 
torrent, and the precipitous rocks are excavated into thousands of 
caverns once inhabited — into conduits, cisterns, flights of steps, 
theatres, and temples, forming altogether one of the most wonder- 
ful remains of antiquity. The whole of Arabia Petrea, Edom of 
the sacred writers, presents a scene of appaUing desolation, com- 
pletely fulfilling the denunciation of prophecy .^^ 

A sandy desert, crossed by low limestone ridges, separates 
the table-land of Arabia from the habitable part of Syria, which 
the mountains of Lebanon divide into two narrow plains. These 
mountains may almost be considered offsets from the Taurus 
chain ; at least they are joined to it by the wooded range of 
Gawoor, the ancient Amanus, impassable except by two defiles, 
celebrated in history as the Amanic and Syrian Gates. The 
group of Lebanon begins with Mount Casius, which rises abruptly 
from the sea in a single peak to the height of 7000 feet, near the 
mouth of the Orontes. From thence the chain runs south, at a 
distance of about twenty miles from the shores of the Mediterra- 
nean, in a continuous line of peaks to the sources of the Jordan, 
where it splits into two nearly parallel naked branches, enclosing 
the wide and fertile plain of Beka or Ghor, the ancient Coelo- 
Syria, in which are the ruins of Balbec. 

The Lebanon branch terminates at the sea near the mouth of 
the river Leontes, a few miles north of the city of Old Tyre ; 
while the Anti-Libanus, which begins at Mount Hermon, 9000 
feet high, runs west of the Jordan through Palestine in a winding 
line, till its last spurs, south of the Dead Sea, sink into rocky 
ridges on the desert of Sinai. 

The tops of all these mountains, from Scanderoon to Jerusalem, 
are covered with snow in winter ; it is permanent on Lebanon 
only, whose absolute elevation is 9300 feet. The precipices are 
terrific, the springs abundant, and the spurs of the mountains are 
studded with villages and convents ; there are forests in the higher 
grounds, and, lower down, vineyards and gardens. Many offsets 
from the Anti-Libanus end in precipices on the coast between 
Tripoli and Beyrout, among which the scenery is superb. 

^ From Miss Martineau's spirited and picturesque account of hei 
journey to Eg)''pt and Syria. 



84 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

The valleys and plains of Syria are full of rich vegetable mould, 
particularly the plain of Damascus, which is brilliantly verdant, 
though surrounded by deserts, the barren uniformity of which is 
relieved on the east by the broken columns and ruined temples 
of Palmyra (Tadmor). The Assyrian wilderness, however, is not 
everywhere absolutely barren. In the spring-time it is covered 
with a thin but vivid verdure, mixed with fragrant aromatic herbs, 
of very short duration. When these are burnt up, the unbounded 
plains resume their wonted dreariness. The country, high and 
low, becomes more barren towards the Holy Land, yet even here 
some of the mountains — as Carmel, Bashan, and Tabor — are 
luxuriantly wooded, and many of the valleys are fertile, especially 
the valley of the Jordan, which has the appearance of pleasure- 
grounds with groves of wood and aromatic plants, but almost in a 
state of nature. One side of the Lake of Tiberias in Gahlee is 
savage ; on the other there are gentle hills and wild romantic 
vales, adorned with palm-trees, olives, and sycamores — a scene 
of calm solitude and pastoral beauty. Jerusalem stands on a 
declivity encompassed by severe stony mountains, wild and deso- 
late. The greater part of Syria is a desert compared with what 
it formerly was. Mussulman rule has blighted this fair region, 
once flowing with milk and honey — the Land of Promise. 

Farther south, desolation increases ; the valleys become nar- 
rower, the hills more denuded and rugged, till, south of the Dead 
Sea, their dreary aspect announces the approach of the desert. 

The valley of the Jordan affords the most remarkable instance 
known of the depression of the land below the general surface of 
the globe. This hollow, which extends from the Gulf of Akabah 
on the Red Sea to the bifurcation of Lebanon, is 620 feet below 
the Mediterranean at the Sea of Galilee, and the acrid waters of 
the Dead Sea have a depression of 1300 feet.^* The lowness of 
the valley had been observed by the ancients, who gave it the 
descriptive name of Coelo-Syria, " Hollow Syria." It is abso- 
lutely walled in by mountains between the Dead Sea and Leba- 
non, where it is from ten to fifteen miles wide.^^ 

A shrinking of the strata must have taken place along this 
coast of the Mediterranean, from a sudden change of temperature 

^ By the trigonometrical measurement of Major Anthony Symonds, 
confirmed by French authorities, and adopted by Baron Humboldt, the 
depression of the Dead Sea is, as stated in the text, 1300 feet; but 
MM. Bertou and Russiger made it out to be 1388 by the barometer. 
See Lieut. Molyneux's paper in the Journal of the Royal Geographical 
Society, 1848. 

23 [For a very interesting and reliable account of the river Jordan 
and its valley, the reader is directed to a "Narrative of the United 
States' Expedition to the River Jordan and the Dead Sea, by W. F. 
Lynch, U. S. N., Commander of the Expedition.'' Philadelphia, 1849.] 



AFRICAN TABLE-LAND. 85 

in the earth's crust, or perhaps in consequence of some of the 
internal props giving way, for the valley of the Jordan is not the 
only instance of a dip of the soil below^ the sea-level : the small 
bitter lakes on the Isthmus of Suez are cavities of the same kind, 
as well as the Natron lakes on the Libj^an desert, west from the 
delta of the Nile. 



CHAPTER VII. 



Africa — Table-Land — Cape of Good Hope and Eastern Coast — Western 
Coast — Abyssinia — Senegambia — Low Lands and Deserts. 

The continent of Africa is 5000 miles long from the Cape of Good 
Hope to its northern extremity, and as much between Cape 
Guardafui, on the Indian Ocean, and Cape Verde, on the Atlantic ; 
but from the irregularity of its figure it has an area of only 
12,000,000 of square miles. It is divided in two by the equator, 
consequently the greater part of it lies under a tropical sun. The 
high and low lands of this portion of the old continent are so 
distinctly separated by the Mountains of the Moon, or rather of 
Komri, that, with the exception of the mountainous territory of 
the Atlas, and the small table-land of Barca, it may be said to 
consist of two parts only, a high country aud a low. 

An extensive, though not very elevated, table-land occupies all 
Southern Africa, and even reaches to six or seven degrees north 
of the equator. On three sides it shelves down in tiers of narrow 
parallel terraces to the ocean, separated by mountain-chains which 
rise in height as they recede from the coast ; and there is reason 
to believe that the structure of the northern declivity is similar, 
though its extremities only are known — namely, Abyssinia on the 
east, and the high land of Senegambia on the west; both of which 
project farther to the north than the central part. 

The borders of the table-land are very little known to Europeans, 
and still less its surface, which no white man has crossed north of 
the Tropic of Capricorn. A comparatively small part, north from 
the Cape of Good Hope, has been explored by European travellers. 
Mr. Truter and Mr. Somerville were the first white men whom 
the inhabitants of Litakoo had seen. Of an expedition that fol- 
lowed their track, a few years after, no one returned. 

North of the Cape the land rises to 6000 feet above the sea ; 
and the Orange River, or Gareep, with its tributaries, may be 
more aptly said to drain than to irrigate the arid country through 
8 



86 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

which they flow ; many of the tributaries, indeed, are only the 
channels through which torrents, from the periodical rains, are 
carried to the Orange River, and are destitute of water many 
months in the year. The " Dry River," the name of one of these 
periodical streams, is in that country no misnomer. Their mar- 
gins are adorned with mimosas, and the sandy plains have fur- 
nished treasures to the botanist ; and, indeed, zoology is no less 
indebted to the whole continent of Africa for the various animals 
it produces. 

Dr. Smith crossed the Tropic of Capricorn in a journey from 
the Cape of Good Hope, where the country had still the same 
arid character. North from that there is a vast tract unexplored. 
In 1802 two native travelling merchants crossed the continent, 
which is 1590 miles wide, from Loando on the Atlantic to Zam- 
beze on the Mozambique Channel. They found various mercan- 
tile nations, considerably advanced in civilization, who raise 
abundance of maize and millet, though the greater part of the 
country is in a state of nature. Ridges of low hills, yielding cop- 
per, the staple commodity of this country, run from S.E. to N.W. 
to the west of the dominions of the Camleaze, a country full of 
rivers, morasses, and extensive salt marshes which supply this 
part of the continent with salt. The travellers crossed 102 rivers, 
most af them fordable. The leading feature of this country is 
Lake N'yassi, of great but unknown length," and comparatively 
narrow. It begins 200 miles north from the town of Tete, on the 
Zambeze, and extends from S.E. to N.W., flanked on the east by 
a range of mountains of the same name, running in the same 
direction, at the distance of 350 miles from the Mozambique 
Channel. This is all we know from actual observation of the 
table-land of South Africa, till about the 10th northern meridian, 
where Dr. Beke's Abyssinian journey terminated. It is evident, 
however, that there can be no very high mountains covered with 
perpetual snow on the table-land, for, if there were, Southern 
Africa Avould not be destitute of great rivers; nevertheless, the 
height of the table-land, and of the mountains of Korari on its 
northern edge, must be considerable, to supply the perennial 
sources .of the Nile, the Senegal, and the Niger. 

The edges of the table-land are better known. At the Cape of 
Good Hope the African continent is about 700 miles broad, and 
ends in three narrow parallel ridges of mountains, the last of 
which is the highest, and abuts on the table-land. All are cleft 
by precipitous deep ravines, through which winter torrents flow 
to the ocean. The longitudinal valleys, or koroos, that separate 
them, are tiers, or steps, by which the plateau dips to the mari- 
time plains. The descent is rapid, as both these plains and the 
mountain-ranges are very narrow. On the western side the 



WESTERN COAST OF SOUTH AFRICA. 87 

mountains form a high group and end in steep promontories on 
the coast, where Table Mountain, at Cape Town, 3582 feet high, 
forms a conspicuous landmark for mariners. 

Granite, which is the base of Southern Africa, rises to a con- 
siderable height in many places, and is generally surmounted by 
vast horizontal beds of sand-stone, which give that character of 
flatness peculiar to the summits of many of the Cape mountains. 
. The koroos are arid deserts in the dry season, but soon after 
the rains they are covered with verdure and a splendid flora. 
The maritime plains partake of the same temporary aridity, though 
a large portion is rich in cereal productions, vinej^ards, fruits, and 
pasture. 

The most inland of the parallel ranges, about the 20th meridian 
east, is 10,000 feet high, and, though it sinks to some groups of 
hills at its eastern extremity, it rises again, about the 27th meri-. 
dian, in a truly alpine and continuous chain — the Quotlamba 
mountains, which follow the northerly direction of Natal, and are 
continued in the Lupata range of hills, 80 miles inland, through 
Zanguebar. 

At Natal the coast is grassy, with clumps of trees, like an Eng- 
lish park. The Zambeze, and other streams from the table-land, 
refresh the plains on the Mozambique Channel and Zanguebar, 
where, though some parts are marshy and covered with man- 
groves, groves of palm-trees adorn the plains, which yield prodi- 
gious quantities of grain, and noble forests cover the mountains ; 
but from 4° N. latitude to Cape Guardafu'i is a continued desert. 
There is also a barren tract at the southern end of the Lupata 
chain, where gold is found in masses and grains on the surface 
and in the watercourses, which tempted the Portuguese to make 
settlements on these unwholesome coasts. 

The island of Madagascar, with its magnificent range of moun- 
tains, full of tremendous precipices, and covered with primeval 
forests, is parallel to the African coast, and only separated from it 
by the Mozambique Channel, 300 miles broad, so it may be pre- 
sumed that it rose from the deep at the same time as the Lupata 
chain. 

The contrast between the eastern and western coasts of South 
Africa is very great. The escarped bold mountains round the 
Cape of Good Hope, and its rocky coast, which extends a short 
way along the Atlantic to the north, are succeeded by ranges of 
sandstone of small elevation, which separate the internal sandy 
desert from the equally parched sandy shore. The terraced dip 
of the Atlantic coast for 900 miles, between the Orange River and 
Cape Negro, has not a drop of fresh water. 

At Cape Negro, ranges of mountains, separated by long level 
tracts, begin, and make a semicircular bend into the interior, leav- 



88 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

ing plains along the coast 140 miles broad. In Benguela these 
plains are healthy and cultivated ; farther north there are mo- 
notonous grassy savannahs, and forests of gigantic trees. The 
ground, in many places saturated with water, bears a tangled crop 
of mangroves and tall reeds, which even cover the shoals along 
the coasts ; but pestilential vapours hang over them, never dissi- 
pated by a breeze. 

The country of Calbongos is the highest land on the coast, 
where a magnificent group of mountains, covered almost to their 
tops with large timber, lie not far inland. The low plains of 
Biafra and Benin, west of them, and especially the delta of 
the Niger, consist entirely of swamps loaded with rank vegeta- 
tion. 

The angel of Death, brooding over these regions in noisome 
exhalations, guards the interior of that country from the aggres- 
sions of the European, and has hitherto baffled his attempts to 
form settlements on the banks of this magnificent river. 

Many portions of North Guinea are so fertile that they might 
vie with the valley of the Nile in cereal riches, besides various 
other productions ; and though the temperature is very high, the 
climate is not very unhealthy. 

No European has yet seen the high mountains of Komri, gen- 
erally known as the Mountains of the Moon, which are said to 
cross the continent along the northern edge of the great plateau, 
between the two projections or promontories of Abyssinia and 
Senegambia. This chain divides the semi-civihzed states of Sou- 
dan, Bornou, and Begharmi from the barbarous nations on the 
table-land. It extends south of Abyssinia at one end, at the other 
it joins the highland of Senegambia, and is continued in the Kong 
range, which runs 1200 miles behind Dahomy and the Gold 
Coast, and ends in the promontory of Sierra Leone. 

The vast alpine promontory of Abyssinia or Ethiopia, 700 
miles wide, projects from the table-land for 300 miles into the low 
lands of North Africa. It dips to a low swampy region on the 
north, to the plains of Senaar and Kordofan on the west, and on 
the east sinks abrubtly to the coast at a short distance from the 
Red Sea. It is there from 800 to 900 feet high, but declines to 
the westAvard, so that in the 15th parallel of N. latitude the east- 
ern slope of the table-land towards the Red Sea is nearly twenty 
times greater than the counter-slope towards the Nile ; the edge 
of the latter, however, is from 3000 to 4000 feet above the plains.^ 
The character of Abyssinia is in that respect like the Deccan, or 
Southern India, where the Ghauts rise abruptly near the coast of 

^ Estimated from N.E. to S.W., the proportion of the two slopes of 
the Abyssinian table- land is as 12-6 to 1. 



SENEGAMBIA. 89 

Malabar, and the surface falls gradually towards that of Coroman- 
del. The table-land of Abyssinia is a succession of undulating 
plains, broken by higher insulated mountain-masses, which ia 
Samien, Godjam, and in Kaffa more to the south, attain an abso- 
lute altitude of from 11,000 to 15,000 feet. The plains-are inter- 
sected by numerous streams which form the Nile and its tributa- 
ries on the one hand, and the Hawash and its affluents, which 
flow into the Indian Ocean, on the other. The edge of the table- 
land towards the Nile is steep ; the streams run to the low lands 
through valleys from 3000 to 4000 feet deep, so that a traveller 
in ascending them might imagine that he is crossing a mountain- 
range, whereas, on coming to the top, he finds himself on a high 
plain. This elevated country has lakes, swamps, verdant mea- 
dows, and cultivated land, producing various grains, and occasion- 
ally coffee. The plain of the Dembia, the granary of the country, 
enjoys perpetual spring. Dr. Beke, to whom we are indebted 
for so much valuable information with regard to this part of Africa, 
travelled to within less than ten degrees of the equator, and, from 
the accounts he received, the country south of Abyssinia appears 
to be similar to those of Shoa and Godjam — extensive undulating 
plains, with occasional mountain-masses, and traversed by numer- 
ous streams ; wide tracts must be 7000 or 8000 feet high, as they 
only produce barley : the country towards Kaffa and the sources 
of the Gojeb is still higher, and in some parts desert ; but the 
caravan-road between Wallega and Kaffa passes through a vast 
forest impervious to the rays of the sun, which, according to the 
accounts of the merchants, is not seen for four or five days suc- 
cessively ; and west of the Dedhesa there are immense grassy 
plains, the elephant-hunting grounds of the Galla tribes. 

The geological structure of Abyssinia is similar to that of the 
Cape of Good Hope, the base being granite and the superstruc- 
ture sandstone, occasionally limestone, schist, and breccia. The 
granite comes to the surface in the lower parts of Abyssinia, but 
sandstone predominates in the upper parts, and assumes a tabular 
form, often lying on the tops of the mountains in enormous flat 
masses, only accessible by steps cut in the rocks or by ladders: 
such insulated spots are used as state prisons. Large tracts are 
of ancient volcanic rocks, especially in Shoa. 

Senegambia, the appendage to the western extremity of the 
table-land, also projects far into the low lands, and is the water- 
shed whence the streams flow on one side to the plains of Sou- 
dan, where they join the Johba or Niger ; and from the other side, 
the Gambia, Senegal, and other rivers, run into the Atlantic over 
a rich cultivated plain, but unhealthy from the rankness of the 
vegetation. 

The moisture that descends from the northern ed^e of the 
8* ^ 



90 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

table-land of South Africa, under the fiery radiance of a tropical 
sun, fertilizes a tract of country stretching from sea to sea across 
the continent, the commencement of the African low lands. A 
great part of this region, which contains many kingdoms and 
commercial cities, is a very productive country. The abundance 
of water, the industry of the natives in irrigating the ground, the 
periodical rains, and the tropical heat, leave the soil no repose. 
Agriculture is in a rude state, but nature is so bountiful that rice 
and millet are raised in sufficient quantity to supply the wants of 
a numerous population. Gold is found in the river-courses, and 
there are elephants in the forests ; but man is the staple of their 
commerce — a disgrace to the savage who sells his fellow-crea- 
ture, but a far greater disgrace to the more savage purchaser who 
dares to assume the sacred name of Christian. 

This long belt of neverrfailing vitalitj^ which has its large lakes, 
poisonous swamps, deep forests of gigantic trees, and vast soli- 
tudes in which no white men ever trade, is of small width com- 
pared with its length. In receding from the mountains, the mois- 
ture becomes less and the soil gradually worse, sufficing only to 
produce grass for the flocks of the wandering Bedouin. At last 
a hideous barren waste begins, which extends northwards 800 
miles in unvaried desolation to the grassy steppes at the foot of 
the Atlas ; and for 1000 miles between the Atlantic and the Red 
Sea the nakedness of this blighted land is unbroken but by the 
valley of the Nile and a few oases. 

In the west about 760,000 miles, an area equal to that of the 
Mediterranean Sea, and, in some parts, of a lower level, is covered 
by the trackless sands of the Sahara desert, which is even pro- 
longed for miles into the Atlantic Ocean in the form of sand- 
hanks. This desert is alternately scorched by heat and pinched 
by cold. The wind blows from the east nine months in the year; 
and at the equinoxes it rushes in a hurricane, driving the sand in 
clouds before it, producing the darkness of night at midday, and 
overwhelming caravans of men and animals in common destruc- 
tion. Then the sand is heaped up in waves ever varying with 
the blast ; even the atmosphere is of sand. The desolation of 
this dreary waste, boundless to the eye as the ocean, is terrific 
and subhme ; the dry heated air is like a red vapour, the setting 
sun seems to be a volcanic fire, and at times the burning wind of 
the desert is the blast of death. There are many salt lakes to the 
north, and even tlie springs are of brine ; thick incrustations of 
dazzling salt cover the ground, and the particles, carried aloft by 
whirlwinds, flash in the sun like diamonds. 

Sand is not the only character of the desert ; tracts of gravel 
and low bare rocks occur at times, not less barren and dreary ; 
but on the eastern and northern borders of the Sahara, fresh water 



AFRICAN DESERTS. 91 

rises near the surface, and produces an occasional oasis where 
barrenness and vitality meet. The oases are generally depressed 
below the level of the desert, with an arenaceous or calcareous 
border enclosing their emerald verdure like a frame. The smaller 
oases produce herbage, ferns, acacias, and some shrubs ; forests 
of date-palms grow in the larger, which are the resort of lions, 
panthers, gazelles, reptiles, and a variety of birds. 

In the Nubian and Libyan deserts, to the east of the Sahara, 
the continent shelves down towards the Mediterranean in a series 
of terraces, consisting of vast level sandy or gravelly deserts, 
lying east and west, separated by low rocky ridges. This 
shelving country, which is only 540 feet above the sea at the 
distance of 750 miles inland, is cut transversely by the Nile, and 
by a deep furrow parallel to it, in which there is a long line of 
oases. This furrow, the Nile, and the Red Sea, nearly parallel 
to both, are flanked by rocky eminences which run north from 
the table-land. 

On the interminable sands and rocks of these deserts no animal — 
no insect — breaks the dread silence; not a tree nor a shrub is to 
be seen in this land without a shadow. In the glare of noon the 
air quivers with the heat reflected from the red sand, and in the 
night it is chilled under a clear sky sparkling with its host of 
stars. Strangely but beautifully contrasted with these scorched 
solitudes is the narrow valley of the Nile, threading the desert for 
1000 miles in emerald green, with its blue waters foaming in 
rapids among wild rocks, or quietly spreading in a calm stream 
amidst fields of corn and the august monuments of past ages. 

At the distance of a few days' journey west from the Nile, over 
a hideous flinty plain, lies the furrow already mentioned, trending 
to the north, and containing the oases of Darfour, Selime, the 
Great and Little Oases, and the parallel valleys of the Natron 
Lakes, and Bahr-Belama or the " Dry River." The Great Oasis, 
or Oasis of Thebes, is 120 miles long and 4 or 5 broad ; the 
Lesser Oasis, separated from it by 40 miles of desert, is of the 
same form. Both are rich in verdure and cultivation, with vil- 
lages amid palm-groves and fruit-trees, mixed with the ruins of 
remote antiquity, offering scenes of peaceful and soft beauty con- 
trasted with the surrounding gloom. The Natron Lakes are in the 
northern part of the Valley of Nitriin, 35 miles west of the Nile ; 
the southern part is a beautiful quiet spot, that became the retreat 
of Christian monks in the middle of the second century, and at 
one time contained 300 convents, of which 4 only remain ; from 
these some very valuable manuscripts of old date have recently 
been obtained. 

Another line of oases runs along the latitude of Cairo, with 
fresh-water lakes — consequently no less fertile than the preceding. 



92 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

The ruins of the Temple of Jupiter Ammon are in one of 
them. 

Hundreds of miles on the northern edge of the desert, from the 
Atlantic along the southern foot of the Atlas to the Great Syrtis, 
are pasture-lands without a tree — an ocean of verdure. At the 
Great Syrtis the Sahara comes to the shores of the Mediterranean ; 
and, indeed, for 1100 miles between the 'termination of the Atlas 
and the little table-land of Barca, the ground is so unprofitable 
that the population only amounts to about 30,000, and these are 
mostly wandering tribes who feed their flocks on the grassy 
steppes. Magnificent countries lie along the Mediterranean coast 
north of the Atlas, suceptible of cultivation. History, and the 
ruins of many great cities, attest their former splendour; even 
now there are many populous commercial cities, and much grain 
is raised, though a great part of these valuable kingdoms is badly 
cultivated or not cultivated at all. 

The base of the sandy parts of North Africa is stiff clay; in 
Lower Nubia, between the parallels of Assouan and Esneh, red 
and white granite prevail, followed by argillaceous sandstone ; 
Middle Egypt is calcareous ; and, lower down, the alluvium of the 
Nile covers the surface. 

It would appear that Southern Africa, though similar in its 
unbroken surface and peninsular shape to South America, bears 
no resemblance to it in other respects, but has a great analogy to 
the Deccan in its triangular form, its elevated platform, and in 
the position of its encompassing mountain-chains, if, as there is 
every reason to believe, from the fertile region to the north, either 
that South Africa descends in a succession of terraces to the low 
lands, or that the Kornri mountains have a real existence, and run 
directly across the continent. From the connection already men- 
tioned between external appearance and internal structure, as well 
as from partial information, it is surmised that the mountains sur- 
rounding the two triangles in question are of corresponding con- 
stitution; that, if any secondary strata do exist in this part of 
Africa, they must be exterior to these chains, and neither on the 
summits of the high mountains nor in the interior ; and that any 
tertiary strata on the table-land must, as in the Deccan, have 
formed the basins of fresh-water lakes. =^'' 

The prodigious extent of desert is one of the most extraordinary 
circumstances in the structure of the old continent. A zone of 
almost irretrievable desolation prevails from the Atlantic Ocean 
across Africa and through central Asia almost to the Pacific Ocean, 
through at least 120 degrees of longitude. There are also many 
long districts of the same sterile nature in Europe ; and if to these 

2^ Johnston's Physical Atlas. 



AMERICAN CONTINENT. 93 

sandy plains the deserts of Siberia be added, together with all the 
barren and rocky mountain tracts, the unproductive land in the 
Old World is prodigious. The quantity of salt on the sandy 
plains is enormous, and proves that they have been part of the 
bed of the ocean or of inland seas at no very remote geological 
period. The low lands round the Black Sea and Caspian, and 
the Lake of Aral, seem to have been the most recently reclaimed, 
from the great proportion of shells in them identical with those 
now existing in these seas. The same may be said of the Sahara 
desert, where salt and recent shells are plentiful. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



American Continent — The Mountains of South America — The Andes — 
The Mountains of the Parima and Brazil. 

Some thinner portion of the crust of the globe under the meridians 
that traverse the continent of America from Cape Horn to the 
Arctic Ocean must have yielded to the expansive forces of the 
subterranean fires, or been rent by contraction of the strata in 
cooUng. Through this the Andes had arisen, producing the 
greatest influence on the form of the continent, and the peculiar 
simpHcity that prevails in its principal mountains systems, which, 
Avith very few exceptions, have a general tendency from north to 
south. The continent is 9000 miles long, and, its form being two 
great peninsulas joined by a long narrow isthmus, it is divided by 
nature into three parts, of South, Central, and North America ; 
yet these three are connnected by the mighty chain of the Andes, 
but little inferior in height to the Himalaya, running along the 
coast of the Pacific from within the Arctic nearly to the Antarctic 
circle. In this course every variety of climate is to be met with, 
from the rigour of polar congelation to the scorching heat of the 
torrid zone; while the mountains are so high that the same 
extremes of heat and cold may be experienced in the journey of 
a few hours from the burning plains of Peru to the snow-clad 
peaks above. In this long chain there are three distinct varieties 
of character, nearly, though not entirely, corresponding to the 
three natural divisions of the continent. The Andes of South 
America differ materially from those of Centrtil America and 
Mexico, while both are dissimilar to the North American pro- 
longation of the chain, generally known as the Chippewayan or 
Rocky Mountains. 

The greatest length of South America, from Cape Horn to the 



94 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. ' 

Isthmus of Panama is about 4020 geographical miles. It is very 
narrow at its southern extremity, but increases in width north- 
wards to the latitude of Cape Roque on the Atlantic, between 
which and Cape Blanco on the Pacific it attains its greatest 
breadth of nearly 2750 miles. It consists of three mountain 
systems, separated by the basins of three of the greatest rivers in 
the world. The Andes run along the western coast from Cape 
Horn to the Isthmus of Panama, in a single chain of inconsidera- 
ble width but majestic height, dipping rapidly to the narrow mari- 
time plains of the Pacific, but descending on the east in high 
valleys and occasional ofl^sets to plains of vast extent, whose dead 
level is for hundreds of miles as unbroken as that of the ocean by 
which they are bounded. Nevertheless, two detached mountain 
systems rise on these plains, one in Brazil between the Rio de la 
Plata and the river of the Amazons; the other is that of Parima 
and Guiana, lying between the river of the Amazons and the 
Orinoco. 

The great chain of the Andes first raises its crest above the 
waves of the Antarctic Ocean in the majestic dark mass of Cape 
Horn, the southernmost point of the archipelago of Tierra del 
Fuego. This group of mountainous islands, equal in size to 
Britain, is cut off from the main land by the Straits of Magellan. 
The islands are penetrated in every direction by bays and narrow 
inlets of the sea, or fiords, ending often in glaciers fed by the 
snow on the summits of mountains 6000 feet high. Peatmosses 
cover the higher declivities of these mountains, and their 
flanks are beset with densely entangled forests of brown beech, 
which never lose their dusky leaves, producing altogether a 
savage, dismal scene. The mountains which occupj' the western 
side of this cluster of islands sink down to wide level plains to the 
east, like the continent itself, of which the archipelago is but the 
southern extremity .=^ 

The Pacific washes the very base of the Patagonian Andes for 
about 1000 miles, from Cape Horn to the 40th parallel of south 
latitude. The whole coast is lined by a succession of archipelagos 
and islands, separated from the iron-bound shores by narrow arms 
of the sea, which, in the more southern part, are in fact profound 
longitudinal valleys of the Andes filled by the ocean, so that the 
chain of islands running parallel to the axes of the mountains is 
but the summits of an exterior range rising above the sea. 

The coast itself for 050 miles is begirt by walls of rock, which 
, t . ■ — — — 

38 The Voyage of Captain King, R.N., Mr. Darwin's ^-Journal of a 
Naturalist," Dr. PcBppig's "Travefs in South America," are the authori- 
ties for the account of Tierra del Fuego, Patagonia, and Chile; Baron 
Humboldt, Mr. Pentland, Drs. PcBppig and Meyer of Berlin, for Peru 
and the Andean Chain to the Isthmus of Panama. 



THE ANDES. 95 

sink into unfathomable depths, torn by long crevices or fiords, 
similar to those on the Norwegian shore, ending in tremendous 
glaciers, whose masses, falling with a crash like thunder, drive the 
sea in sweeping breakers through these chasms. The islands 
and the mainland are thickly clothed with forests, which are of a 
less sombre aspect as the latitude decreases. 

Between the Pass of Chacabuco north of Santiago, the capital 
of Chile, and the archipelago of Chiloe, a chain of hills, composed 
in general of crystalline rocks, borders the coast ; between which 
and the Andes exists a longitudinal valley, well watered by the 
rivers descending from the central chain, and which constitutes 
the most fertile portion, nay the garden of the Chillian republic — 
the rich provinces of Santiago, Colchagua, and Maule. This 
longitudinal depression may be considered as a prolongation of 
the strait that separates Chiloe from the mainland. Many peaks 
of the Andes enter within the limits of perpetual snow, between 
the 40th and 31st parallels ; and some of which are active volcanos. 
In lat. 32° 39' rises the giant of the American Andes, the Nevado 
of Aconcagua, which towers over the Chillian village of the same 
name, and is so clearly visible from Valparaiso. Although 
designated as a volcano, a term generally applied in Chile to 
every elevated and snowy peak, it offers no trace of modern igne- 
ous origin. It appears to be composed of a species of porphyry 
generally found in the centre of the Chillian chain. Its height, 
according to Captain Beechey's very accurate observations, ex- 
ceeds 24,000 feet.39 

About the latitude of Concepcion the dense forests of Araucarias 
and of other semi-tropical plants cease with the humid equable 
climate ; and as no rain falls in central Chile for nine months in 
the year, the brown, purple, and tile-red hills and mountains are 
only dotted here and there with low trees and bushes ; very soon, 
however, after the heavy showers have moistened the cracked 
ground, it is covered with a beautiful but transient flora. In 
some valleys it is more permanent and of a tropical character, 
mixed with alpine plants.'*^ In southern Chile rain falls only 
once in two or three years, the consequence of which is sterility 
on the western precipitous and unbroken descent of the Andes ; 
but on the east, two secondary branches leave the central Cordil- 
lera, which extend 300 or 400 miles into the plains, wooded to a 
great height. The Sierra de Cordova, the most southern of these, 
begins between the 33d and 31st parallels, and extends in the 

^ This great height has been deduced, adopting the position of the 
Peak as fixed by Captain Fitz Roy, and employing the angles of eleva- 
tion observed by Captain Beechey near Valparaiso. 

^0 Dr. PoBppig's Travels. 



96 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

direction of the Pampas ; more to the north, the Sierra di Salta 
and Juguy stretches from the valley of Catamarca and Tucuman 
towards the Rio Vermejo, one of the tributaries of the Rio de la 
Plata. 

The chain takes the name of the Peruvian Andes about the 
24th degree of south latitude, and is separated from the Pacific 
by a range of hills composed of crystalline rocks, and parallel to 
the sea coast, and of an intervening sandy desert, seldom above 
60 miles broad, on which rain scarcely ever falls, where bare 
rocks pierce through the inoving sand. The w^idth of the coast 
is nearly the same to the Isthmus of Panama, but damp luxuriant 
forests full of orchide^, begin about the latitude of Payta, and 
continue northwards. 

From its southern extremity to the Nevado of Chorolque, in 
21° 30' S. lat., the Andes are merely one grand and continuous 
range of mountains, but north of that the chain intercepts a very 
elevated table-land, or wide longitudinal valley, in the direction 
of the chain, bounded on each side by a parallel range of high 
mountains, rising much above it. These parallel Cordilleras are 
united at various points by enormous transverse groups or moun- 
tain-knots, or by single ranges crossing between them like dykes, 
a structure that prevails to Pasto, 1° 13' 6" N. lat. The descent 
to the Pacific is very steep ; the dip is also very rapid to the east, 
whence offsets diverge to the level plains. 

Unhke the table-lands of Asia of the same elevation, where 
cultivation is confined to the more sheltered spots, or those still 
lower in Europe, -which are only fit for pasture, these lofty regions 
of the Andes yield exuberant crops of every European grain, and 
have many populous cities enjoying the luxuries of life, with 
universities, libraries, civil and rehgious establishments, at alti- 
tudes equal to that of the Peak of Teneriffe, which is 12,170 feet 
above the sea-level. Villages are placed and mines are worked 
at heights as great and even greater than the top of Mont Blanc.^^ 
This state is not limited to the present times, since these table- 
lands were once the centre of civilization by a race of mankind 
which "bear the same relation to the Incas and the present 
inhabitants that the Etruscans bear to the ancient Romans and to 
the Italians of our own days." 

The table-land or valley of Desaguadero, one of the most 
remarkable of these, has an absolute altitude of 12,900 feet, and 
a breadth varying from 30 to 60 miles: it stretches 400 miles 
between the two parallel chains of the Andes, and betw^een the 
transverse mountain-group of Lipez, in 20° S. lat., and the enor- 

^^ The celebrated silver mines of Potosi were formerly worked to 
the very summit of that metalliferous mountain^ 16,150 feet above the 
sea level. 



THE ANDES. 97 

mous mountain-knot of Vilcanota, which, extending from- east to 
west, shuts in the valley on the north-west, and occupying an 
area three times as large as Switzerland, some of the snowy 
peaks rising 8300 feet above the surface of the table-land, from 
which an idea may be formed of the gigantic scale of the Andes. 
This table-land or valley is bounded on each side by the two grand 
chains of the Bolivian Andes : that on the west is the Cordillera 
of the coast ; the range on the east is the Bolivian Cordillera, 
properly speaking ; and on its north-west prolongation the Cor- 
dillera Real.^ These two rows of mountains lie so near the edge 
that the Avhole breadth of the table-land, including both, is only 
226 miles. All the snowy peaks of the Cordilleras of the coast 
are either active volcanoes or of igneous origin, and are all situate 
near the maritime declivity of the chain; consequently, the de- 
scent is very abrupt. The eastern Cordillera, which begins at 
the metalliferous mountain of Potosi, is below the level of per- 
petual snow to the south, but its northern portion contains the 
three peaked mountains of Sorata, of Sup'aiwasi, and Illimani, 
and is one of the most magnificent portions of the Andes.*^ The 
snowy part begins with the gigantic mass of Illimani, whose 
serrated ridges are elongated in the direction of the axis of the 
chain. The lowest glacier on its southern slope does not descend 
below 16,500 feet, and the valley of Totoral, a mere gulf in which 
Vesuvius might stand, comes between llHmani and the Nevadoof 
La Mesada, from whence the eastern Cordillera runs to the north- 
west in a continuous line of snow-clad peaks to the group of Vil- 
canoto, where it unites with the Cordillera of the coast. 

The valley of the Desaguadero, occupying 150,000 square 
miles, has a considerable variety of surface ; in the south, through- 
out the mining district, it is poor and cold. Potosi, the highest 
city in the world, stands at an absolute elevation of 13,330 feet, 
at the foot of a mountain celebrated for its silver mines. Chiqui- 
saca, the capital of Bolivia, containing 13,000 inhabitants, lies to 
the north-east of Potosi, in the midst of cultivated fields. The 
northern part of the valley is populous, and produces wheat, 
barley, and other grain ; and the Lake of Titicaca, twenty times 
as large as the Lake of Geneva, fills the north-western portion 
of this great basin. The islands and shores of this lake still 
exhibit ruins of gigantic magnitude, monuments of a people more 
ancient than the Incas. The modern city of La Paz with 40,000 

^2 Baron Humboldt and Mr. Pent! and. 

^3 The breadth of the table-land, and the two Cordilleras of the 
Bolivian Andes given in the text, was measured by Mr. Pentland; he 
also determined the heights of Illimani to be 21,150 feet; of Supaiwasi 
or Huayna Potosi, 20.260 feet; and of Ancohuma or the Nevado of 
Sorata, 21,290 feet. 
9 



98 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

inhabitants, not far from its southern shores, stands in the most 
sublime situation that can be imagined, having in full view the 
vast Nevado of Illimani to the east-south-east at a distance of 
seven leagues. 

Many offsets leave the eastern side of the Bolivian Cordillera 
which terminates in the great plain of Chiquitos and Paraguay ; 
the most important is the Cordillera of Yuracaraes, which bounds 
the rich valley of Cochabamba on the north, and ends near the 
town of Santa Cruz de la Sierra. 

There are some fertile valleys in the snow-capped group of 
Vilcanota and Cusco. The cit}" of Cusco, which contains nearly 
50,000 inhabitants, was the capital of the empire of the Incas : it 
still contains numerous ruins of that dynasty, among which 
the remains of the Temple of the sun and its Cyclopean Fortress 
still mark its former splendour. Four ancient Peruvian roads 
led from Cusco to the different parts of the empire, little inferior 
in many respects to the old Roman ways : all crossing mountain- 
passes higher than the Peak of Teneriffe. On the northern pro- 
longation of the chain, in lat. 11° S., encircled by the Andes, is 
the elevated plain of Bombon, near to the celebrated silver-mines 
of Pasco, at a height of 14,000 feet above the sea. In it is situated 
the Lake of Lauricocha, which may be considered, from its 
remoteness, as one of the sources of the Amazon. There are 
many small lakes on the table-lands and high valleys of the 
Andes, some even within the range of perpetual snow. They 
are very cold and deep, often of the purest sea-green colour ; 
some of them may have been craters of extinct volcanos. 

The chain of the Andes is divided into three ranges of moun- 
tains running from south to north in the transverse group or 
mountain-knot of Pasco and Huanuco, which shuts in the valley 
of Bombon between the 11th and 10th parallels of south latitude : 
that in the centre separates the wide fertile valley of the Upper 
Marafion from the still richer valley of the Huallaga, whilst the 
more eastern forms the barrier between the latter and the tropical 
valley of the Yucayali. The western chain alone reaches the 
limit of perpetual snow, and, if we except the Nevado of Huay- 
lillas, in 7° 50', no mountain north of this for nearly 400 miles to 
the Andes of duito arrives at the snow-line. 

In lat. 4° 50' S. the Andes form the mountain-knot of Loxa, 
once celebrated for its forests, in which the cinchona or Peruvian 
bark was discovered. From this knot the chain divides into two 
great longitudinal ridges or Cordilleras, in an extent of 350 miles, 
passing through the republic of the Equator to the mountain- 
group of Los Pastos in that of New Grenada. These ridges enclose 
a vast longitudinal valley, which, divided by the cross ridges of 
Assuay and Chisinche into three basins, form the valleys of 



THE ANDES. 99 

Cuenga, Tapia, and Cluito. The plain of Cuen^a offers little 
interest ; that of Tapia is magnificent ; whilst the valley of 
Gluito is one of extraordinary beauty : on either side rise a series 
of snow-capped peaks, celebrated in every way in the history of 
science, as the valley itself is in that of the aboriginal races of the 
New World. Here the energies of volcanic action have been 
studied with the greatest fruits ; here, now one hundred years 
ago, took place that measurement of an arc of the meridian which 
afforded the most accurate data at the time towards the determi- 
nation of the mass and form of our planet, and which has conferred 
eternal honour on the body with which it originated, the French 
Academy of Sciences ; and celebrity on the names of Bouguier, 
La Condamine, and Godin, Don George Juan and Ulloa, who 
conducted it on the part of the crowns of France and of Spain. 

The Cordillera or ridge which hems in the valley of Gluito on 
the east contains the snow-capped peaks of Antisana, Cotopaxi, 
one of the most beautiful of active volcanoes, whose dazzling 
cone rises to a height of 18,775 feet, of Tungaragua and el-Altar, 
the latter once equal to Chimboroza in height, and Sangay. The 
western range includes the gigantic Chimborazo, which may be 
seen from the coast of the Pacific, the pyramidal peak of Illinissa, 
the wreck of an ancient volcano. The height of Illinissa was 
measured by the French Academicians, by very careful opera- 
tions, directly above the level of the ocean, the latter being visible 
from it ; and by its means the absolute elevation of the valley of 
Gluito, and of the other peaks that encircle it, was deduced, as 
well as the first approximate value of the barometrical coefficient. 
North of Chimborazo and near it is the Carguairazo, and close to 
the city of Gluito rises the scarcely less celebrated volcano of 
Pichincha, whilst the Nevado of Cayambe, whose summit, ele- 
vated 19,535 feet, is traversed by the terrestrial equator, perhaps 
the greatest and most remarkable landmark on the surface of our 
planet, closes the north-east extremity of the valley. 

The valley of Gluito, one of the finest in the Andes, is 200 
miles long and 30 wide, with a mean altitude of 10,000 feet, 
bounded by the most magnificent series of volcanoes and moun- 
tains in the New World. A peculiar interest is attached to two 
of the many volcanos in the parallel Cordilleras that flank it on 
each side. The beautiful snow-clad cone of Cayambe Urcu, as 
already stated, traversed by the equator, the most remarkable 
division of the globe closes it on the north; and in the western 
Cordillera the cross still stands on the summit of Pichincha, 
15,924 feet above the Pacific, which served for a signal to 
Bouguier and La Condamine in their memorable measurement 
of an arc of the meridian.** 

" Baron Humboldt. 



100 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

Some parts of the plain of Gluito to the south are sterile, but the 
soil generally is good, and perpetual spring clothes it with exuber- 
ant vegetation. The city of Quito, containing 70,000 inhabitants, 
on the side of Pichincha has an absolute height of 9540 feet. The 
city is well built and handsome; the churches are splendid; it 
possesses universities, the comforts and luxuries of civihzed life, 
in a situation of unrivalled grandeur and beauty. Thus, on the 
very summit of the Andes there is a Avorld by itself, with its moun- 
tains and its valleys, its lakes and rivers, populous towns and cul- 
tivated fields. Many monuments of the Incas are still found in 
good preservation in these plains, where the scenery is most noble 
— eleven volcanic cones are visible from one spot. Although the 
Andes are inferior in height to the Himalaya, yet the domes of 
trachyte, the truncated cones of the active volcanos, and the ser- 
rated ruins of those that are extinct, mixed with the bold features 
of primary mountains, give an infinitely greater variety to the scene, 
while the smoke, and very often the flame, issuing from these 
regions of perpetual snow increase its sublimity. Stupendous as 
these mountains appear even from the plains of the table-land, they 
are merely the inequalities of the tops of the Andes, the serrated 
summit of that mighty chain. 

Between the large group of Los Pastes, containing several ac- 
tive volcanos, and the group of Las Papas, in the second degree 
of north latitude, the bottom of the valley is only 6900 feet above 
the sea; and north of the latter mountain-knot the crest of the 
Andes splits into three Cordilleras, which diverge not again to 
unite. The most westerly of these, the chain of Choco, which 
may be considered the continuation of the great chain, divides the 
valley of the river Cauca from the Pacific ; it is only 5000 feet 
high, and the lowest of the three. Though but 20 miles broad, 
it is so steep, and so difficult of access, that travellers cannot cross 
it on mules, but are carried on men's shoulders: it is rich in gold 
and platina. The central branch, or Cordillera of Q,uindiu, runs 
due north between the Magdalena and Cauca, rising to a great 
height in the volcanic Peak of Tohma. The two last chains are 
united by the mountain-knot of Antioquia, of which little more is 
known than that it forms two great masses, which, after separating 
the streams of the Magdalena, Cauca, and Atrato, trends to the 
N.W., greatly reduced in height, and with the chain of Choco 
forms the low mountains of the Isthmus of Panama. The most 
easterly of the three Cordilleras, called the Sierra de la Summa 
Paz, spreads out on its western declivity into the table-lands of 
Bogota, Tunja, and others, the ancient Cundinamarca, which have 
an elevation of about 9000 feet ; whilst on its eastern slope rise 
the rivers Guaviari and Meta, which form the head waters of the 
Orinoco. The tremendous crevice of Icononzo occurs in the path 



THE ANDES. 101 

leading from the city of Santa Fe de Bogota to the banks of the 
Magdalena. It probably was formed by an earthquake, and is 
like an empty mineral vein, across which are two natural bridges: 
the lowest is composed of stones that have been jammed between 
the rocks in their fall.*^ This Cordillera comprises the Andes of 
Cundinamarca and Merida, and goes north-east through New 
Grenada to the 10th northern parallel, w^here it joins the coast- 
chain of Venezuela or Caraccas, which runs due east, and ends at 
Cape Paria in the Caribbean Sea, or rather at the eastern extre- 
mity of the island of Trinidad. This coast-chain is so majestic and 
beautiful that Baron Humboldt says it is like the Alps rising out 
of the sea without their snow. The insulated group of Santa 
Martha, 19,000 feet high, deeply covered with snow, stands on an 
extensive plain between the delta of the Magdalena and the sea- 
lake of Maracaybo, and is a landmark to mariners far off in the 
Caribbean Sea. 

The passes over the Chilian Andes are numerous; that of the 
Portillo, leading from St. Jago to Mendoza, is the highest ; it crosses 
two ridges, offering a valley between, a diminutive representation 
of the great Peru-Bolivian depression and of the valley of Quito ; 
the most elevated is so high that vegetation ceases far below its 
summit. Those in Peru are higher, though very few reach the 
snow-Une. In Bolivia the mean elevation of the passes in the 
western and eastern Cordillera is 14,892 and 14,422 feet respec- 
tively. That leading from Sorata to the auriferous? valley of Ti 
pauni is perhaps the highest in Bolivia. From the total absence 
of vegetation, and the intense cold, it is supposed to be 16,000 feet 
above the Pacific; those to the north are but httle lower. The 
pass of Quindiu in Colombia, though not so high, is the most dif- 
ficult of all across the Andes: but those crossing the mountain- 
knots from one table-land to another are the most dangerous ; for 
example, that over the Paramo del Assuay, in the plain of Gluito, 
where the road is nearly as high as Mont Blanc, and travellers not 
unfrequently perish from cold winds in attempting it.*^ 

"^s Baron Humboldt. 

^^ It appears by the measurements of Mr. Pentland in the Peru-Boli- 
vian Andes, that many of their passes are higher than in the equatorial 
portion of the chain. The passes of Rumihuasi, on the high road from 
Cusco to Arequipa, of Toledo (between Arequipa and Pano), of Gua- 
lillas and Chullunquiani (between Arica and La Paz), all in the VV^estern 
Cordillera, attain the respective elevations of 16,160, 15,790, 14,750, and 
15,160 feel; — whilst in the Eastern or Bolivian Cordillera the passes of 
Challa (between Oruro and Cochabamba), of Pacuani (between La Paz 
and Coroico), of Pumapacheta (between the lake of Titicaca and the 
affluents to the Amazon), of Vilcanoto (between the valley of the Col- 
lao and that of the river Yucay), rise to heights of 13,600, 15^350, 13,600, 
and 14,520 English feet. 
9* 



102 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

On the western side of the Andes little or no rain falls, except 
at their most southern extremity, and scanty vegetation appears 
only on spots or in small valleys, watered by streams from the 
Andes. Excessive heat and moisture combine to cover the eastern 
side and its offsets with tangled forests of large trees and dense 
brushwood. This exuberance diminishes as the height increases, 
till at last the barren rocks are covered only by snow and glaciers. 
In the Andes near the equator, glaciers descending below the snow- 
line are unknown. The steepness of the declivities and the dry- 
ness of the air, at such great elevations, prevent any accumulation 
of infiltrated water : the annual changes of temperature besides are 
small. Nothing can surpass the desolation of these regions, where 
nature has been shaken by terrific convulsions. The dazzling 
snow fatigues the eye; the huge masses of bold rock, the mural 
precipices, and the chasms yawning into dark unknown depths, 
strike the imagination ; while the crash of the avalanche, or the 
rolling thunder of the volcano, startles the ear. In the dead of 
night, when the sky is clear and the wind hushed, the hollow 
moaning of the volcanic fire fills the Indian with superstitious dread 
in the deathlike stillness of these solitudes. 

In the very elevated plains in the transverse groups, such as 
that of Bombon, however pure the sky, the landscape is lurid and 
colourless : the dark-blue shadows are sharply defined, and from 
the thinness of the air it is hardly possible to make a just estimate 
of distance. Changes of weather are sudden and violent; clouds 
of black vapour arise and are carried by fierce winds over the 
barren plains ; snow and hail are driven with irresistible impe- 
tuosity; and thunder-storms come on, loud and awful, without 
warning. Notwithstanding the thinness of the air, the crash of 
the peals is quite appalling ; while the Hghtning runs along the 
scorched grass, and, sometimes issuing frOm the ground, destroys 
a team of mules or a flock of sheep at one flash.*'' 

Currents of warm air are occasionally met with on the crest of 
the Andes — an extraordinary phenomenon on such gelid heights, 
which is not yet accounted for : they generally occur two hours 
after sunset, are local and narrow, not exceeding a few fathoms in 
width, similar to the equally partial blasts of hot air in the Alps. 
A singular instance, probably, of earth-light occurs in crossing the 
Andes from Chile to Mendoza. On this rocky scene a peculiar 
brightness occasionally rests, a kind of undescribable reddish light, 
which vanishes during the winter rains, and is not perceptible on 
sunny days. Dr. Poeppig ascribes the phenomenon to the dry- 
ness of the air: he was confirmed in his opinion from afterwards 
observing a similar brightness on the coast of Peru, and it has also 
been seen in Egypt. 

'" Dr. Fcsppig. 



THE PARIMA. 103 

The Andes descend to the eastern plains by a series of cultivated 
levels, as those of Tucuman, Salta, and Jujuy, in the Republic of 
La Plata, Avith many others. That of Tucuman is 2500 feet above 
the sea — the garden of the republic. 

The low lands to the east of the Andes are divided by the table- 
lands and mountains of Parima and Brazil into three parts of very 
different aspect — the deserts and pampas of Patagonia and Buenos 
Ayres, the Silvas or woody basin of the Amazons, and the Llanos 
or grassy steppes of the Orinoco. The eastern table-lands nowhere 
exceed 2500 feet of absolute height; the plains are so low and flat, 
especially at the foot of the Andes, that a rise of 1000 feet in the 
Atlantic Ocean would submerge more than half the continent of 
South America. 

The system of Parima is a group of mountains scattered over a 
table-land not more than 2000 feet above the sea, which extends 
600 or 700 miles from east to west, between the river Orinoco, the 
Rio Negro, the Amazons, and. the Atlantic Ocean, It is quite 
unconnected with the Andes, being 80 leagues east from the moun- 
tains of New Grenada. It begins 60 or 70 miles from the coast 
of Venezuela, and ascends by four successive terraces to undula- 
ting plains, which come within one or tWo degrees of the equator, 
and is twice as long as it is broad. 

Seven chains, besides groups of mountains, cross the table-land 
from west to east, of which the chief is the Sierra del Parima. 
Beginning at the mouth of the Meta, it crosses the plains of Esme- 
ralda to the borders of Brazil, This chain is not more than 600 
feet high, is everywhere escarped, and forms the watershed between 
the tributaries of the Amazons and those of the Orinoco. The Ori- 
noco rises on the northern side of the Sierra del Parima, and in 
its circuitous course over the plains of Esmeralda it breaks through 
that chain and the parallel chain of the Maypures 37 miles to the 
south : dashing with violence against the transverse shelving rocks 
and dykes, it forms the magnificent series of rapids and cataracts 
of Maypures and Atures, from whence the Parima mountains have 
got the name of the Cordillera of the cataracts of the Orinoco. The 
chain is of granite, which forms the banks and fills the bed of the 
river, covered with luxuriant tropical vegetation, especially palm- 
forests. In the district of the Upper Orinoco, near Charichana, 
there is a granite rock which emits musical sounds at sunrise, like 
the notes of an organ, occasioned by the difference of temperature 
of the external air and that which fills the deep narrow crevices 
with which the rock is everywhere torn. Something of the same 
kind occurs at Mount Sinai.-^ 

The other parallel chains that extend over the table-land in 

^ Baron Humboldt. 



104 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

Venezuela and Guiana, though not of great height, are very rug- 
ged and often crowned with mural ridges; they are separated by 
flat savannahs, generally barren in the dry season, but after the 
rains covered with a carpet of emerald-green grass, often six feet 
high, mixed with flowers. The vegetation in these countries is 
beautiful beyond imagination: the regions of the Upper Orinoco 
and Rio Negro, and of almost all the mountains and banks of rivers 
in Guiana, are clothed with majestic and impenetrable forests, 
whose moist and hot recesses are the abode of the singular and beau- 
tiful race of the Orchidese and tangled creepers of many kinds. 

Although all the mountains of the system of Parima are wild 
and rugged, they are not high; the inaccessible peak of the Cerro 
Duida, which rises insulated 7155 feet above the plain of Esme- 
ralda, is the culminating point, and one of the highest mountains 
in South America east of the Andes. The fine savannahs of the 
Rupununi were the country of romance in the days of dueen 
Elizabeth. South of Pacaraime, near an inlet of the river, the 
far-famed city of Manoa was supposed to stand, the object of the 
unfortunate expedition of Sir Walter Raleigh; about 11 miles 
south-west of which is situate the lake Amucu, " the Great Lake 
with golden banks," — great only during the periodical floods.*^ 

On the southern side of the basin of the river Amazons lies the 
table-lend of Brazil, nowhere more than 2500 feet high, which 
occupies half that empire, together with part of the Argentine 
republic and Uruguay Orientale. Its form is a triangle, whose 
apex is at the confluence of the rivers Mamore and Beni, and its 
base extends, near the shore of the Atlantic, from the mouth of 
.the Rio de la Plata to within three degrees of the equator. It is 
difficult to define the limits of this vast territory, but some idea 
may be formed of it by following the direction of the rapids and 
cataracts of the rivers descending from it to the plains around. 
Thus, a fine drawn from the fall of the river of the Tocantins, in 
8° 30' S. latitude, to the cataracts of the Madeira, in the eighth 
degree of south latitude, will nearly mark its northern boundary; 
from thence the line would run S.W. to the junction of the 
Mamore and Beni ; then turning to the S.E. along the ridges of 
mountains called the Cordillera Geral, and Sierra Parecis, it 
would proceed south to the cataract of the Parana, called the Sete 
Gluedas, in 24° 30' S. lat. ; and lastly from thence, by the great 
falls of the river Iguassu, to the Morro de Santa Martha, in lat. 
28° 40', south of the island of St. Catherine. 

Chains of mountains, nearly parallel, extend from south-west 
to north-east, 700 miles along the base of the triangle, with a 
breadth of about 400 miles. Of these, the Sierra de Mar, or the 

*^ Baron Humboldt's Personal Narrative. 



THE LOW LANDS OF SOUTH AMERICA. 105 

" coast-chain," reaches from the river Uruguay to Cape San 
Roque, never more distant than 20 miles from the Atlantic, except 
to the south of the bay of Santos, where it is 80. Offsets diverge 
to the right and left ; the granitic peaks of the Corcovado and 
Tejuco, which form such picturesque objects in that most magnifi- 
cent of panoramas the bay of Rio de Janeiro, are the ends of one. 
The parallel chain of Espenha^o, beginning near the town of San 
Paolo, and the continuous chains of the Serro Frio, and forming 
the western boundary of the basin of the Rio San Francisco, is 
the highest in Brazil, one of its mountains, Itambe, being 8426 
feet above the sea. All the mountains in Brazil have a general 
tendency from S.W. to N.E., except the transverse chain of the 
Sierra dos Vertentes, which begins 60 miles south of Villa Rica, 
and runs in a tortuous line to its termination near the junction of 
the Mamore and Beni. It forms the watershed of the tributaries 
of the San Francisco and Amazons on the north, and those of the 
Rio de la Plata on the south ; its greatest height is 3500 feet 
above the sea : its western part, the Sierra Parecis, is merely a 
succession of detached hills. This chain, the coast-chain of Vene- 
zuela, and the mountains of Parima, are the only ranges in the 
continent of America that do not entirely, or in some degree, lie 
in the direction of the meridians. 

Magnificent forests of tall trees, bound together by tangled 
creeping and parasitical plants, clothe the declivities of the moun- 
tains and hne the borders of the Brazilian rivers, where the soil 
is rich and the verdure brilliant. Many of the plains on the table- 
land bear a coarse nutritious grass after the rains only, others 
forests of dwarf trees ; but vast undulating tracts are always ver- 
dant with excellent pasture intermixed with fields of corn : some 
parts are bare sand and rolled quartz, and the Campos Parecis, 
north of the Sierre dos Vertentes, in the province of Matto Grosso, 
is a sandy desert of unknown extent, similar to the Great Gobi on 
the table-land of Tibet. 



CHAPTER IX. 



The Low Lands of South America — Desert of Patagonia — The Pampas 
of Buenos Ayres — ^The Silvas of the Amazons — The Llanos of the 
Orinoco and Venezuela — Geological Notice. 



'to' 



The southern plains are the most barren of the three great tracts 
of American low lands ; they stretch from Tierra del Fuego over 27 
degrees of latitude, or 1900 miles, nearly to Tucuman and the 



106 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

mountains of Brazil. Palms grow at one end, deep snow covers 
the other many months in the year. This enormous plain, of 
1,620,000 square miles, begins on the eastern part of Tierra del 
Fuego, which is a flat covered with trees, and therefore superior 
to its continuation on the continent through eastern Patagonia, 
which, for 800 miles from the land's end to beyond the Rio Colo- 
rado, is a desert of shingle.^ It is occasionally diversified by huge 
boulders, tufts of brown grass, low bushes armed with spines, 
brine-lakes, incrustations of salt, white as snow, and by black 
basaltic platforms, like plains of iron, at the foot of the Andes, 
barren as the rest. Eastern Patagonia, however, is not one uni- 
versal flat, but a succession of shingly horizontal plains at higher 
and higher levels, separated by long lines of cliffs or escarpments, 
the gable ends of the tiers or plains. The ascent is small, for 
even at the foot of the Andes the highest of these platforms is 
only 3000 feet above the ocean. The plains are here and there 
intersected by a ravine or a stream, the waters of which do not 
fertilize the blighted soil. The transition from intense heat to 
intense cDld is rapid, and piercing winds often rush in hurricanes 
over these deserts, shunned even by the Indian, except when he 
crosses them to visit the tombs of his fathers. The shingle ends 
a few miles to the north of the Rio Colorado : there the red cal- 
careous earth of the Pampas begins, monotonously covered with 
coarse tufted grass, without a tree or bush. This country, nearly 
as level as the sea and without a stone, extends almost to the 
table-land of Brazil, and for 1000 miles between the Atlantic and 
the Andes, interrupted only at vast distances by a solitary umbu, 
the only tree of this soil, rising like a great lanclmark. This wide 
space, though almost destitute of water, is not ail of the same 
description. In the Pampas of Buenos Ayres there are four dis- 
tinct regions. For 180 miles west from Buenos Ayres they are 
covered with thistles and lucern of the most vivid green so long 
as the moisture from the rain lasts. In spring the verdure fades, 
and a month afterwards the thistles shoot up 10 feet high, so 
dense and so protected by spines that they are impenetrable. 
During the summer the dried stalks are broken by the wind, and 
the lucern again spreads freshness over the ground. The Pam- 
pas for 430 miles west of this region is a thicket of long tufted 
luxuriant grass, intermixed with gaudy flowers, affording inex- 
haustible pasture to thousands of horses and cattle ; this is fol- 
lowed by a tract of swamps and bogs, to which succeeds a region 
of ravines and stones, and, lastly, a zone, reaching to the Andes, 
of thorny bushes and dwarf trees in one dense thicket. The flat 
plains in Entre Rios in Uruguay, those of Santa Fe, and a great 

w Captain King, R. N., and Mr. Darwin. 



THE SILVAS. 107 

part of Cordova and Tucuman, are of sward, with cattle-farms. 
The banks of the Parana, and other tributaries of the La Plata, 
are adorned with an infinite variety of tropical productions, espe- 
cially the graceful tribe of palms; and the river islands are bright 
with orange-groves. A desert of sand, called El Gran Chaco, 
exists west of the Paraguay, the vegetable produce of which is 
confined to a variety of the aloe and cactus tribes. Adjoining 
this desert are the BoHvian provinces of Chiquitos and Moxos, 
covered with forests and jungle, the scene of the most laborious 
and benificent exertions of the Jesuit Missionaries towards the 
civiHzation of the aborigines of South America in the last cen- 
tury. 

The Pampas of Buenos Ayres, 1000 feet above the sea, sink 
to a low level along the foot of the Andes, where the streams 
from the mountains collect in large lakes, swamps, lagoons of pro- 
digious size, and wide-spreading salines. The swamp or lagoon 
of Ybera, of 1000 square miles, is entirely covered with aquatic 
plants. These swamps are swollen to thousands of square miles 
by the annual floods of the rivers, which also inundate the Pam- 
pas, leaving a fertilizing coat of mud. Multitudes of animals 
perish in the floods, and the drought that sometimes succeeds is 
more fatal. Between the years 1830 and 1832 two millions of 
cattle died from want of food. MilHons of animals are sometimes 
destroyed by casual and dreadful conflagrations in these countries 
when covered with dry grass and thistles.^^ 

The Silvas of the river of the Amazons, lying in the centre of 
the continent, form the second division of the South American, 
low lands. This country is more uneven than the Pampas, and 
the vegetation is so dense that it can only be penetrated by sail- 
ing up the river or its tributaries. The forests not only cover the 
basin of the Amazons from the Cordillera of Chiquitos to the 
mountains of Parima, but also its limiting mountain-chains, the 
Sierra dos Vertentes and Parima, so that the whole forms an area 
of woodland more than six times the size of France, lying be- 
tween the 18th parallel of south latitude and the 7th of north ; 
consequently inter-tropical and traversed by the equator. There 
are some marshy savannahs between the 3d and 4th degrees of 
north latitude, and some grassy steppes south of the Pacaraimo 
chain ; but they are insignificant compared with the Silvas, which 
extend 1500 miles along the river, varying in breadth from 350 
to 800 miles, and probably more. According to Baron Hum- 
boldt, the soil, enriched for ages by the spoils of the forest, con- 
sists of the richest mould. The heat is suflxDcating in the deep 

51 Sir Woodbine Parish on Buenos Ayres, and Sir Francis Head's 
Journey over the Pampas. 



108 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

and dark recesses of these primeval woods, where not a breath of 
air penetrates, and where, after being drenched by the periodical 
rains, the damp is so excessive that a blue mist rises in the early- 
morning among the huge stems of the trees, and envelops the 
entangled creepers stretching from bough to bough. A death-like 
stillness prevails from sunrise to sunset, then the thousands of 
animals that inhabit these forests join in one loud discordant 
roar, not continuous, but in bursts. The beasts seem- to be perio- 
dically and unanimously roused by some unknown impulse, till 
the forest rings in universal uproar. Profound silence prevails at 
midnight, which is broken at the dawn of morning by another 
general roar of the wild chorus. Nightingales too have their fits 
of silence and song; after a pause they 

^^ all burst forth in choral minstrelsy, 

As if some sudden gale had swept at once 

A hundred airy harps.'' Coleridge. 

The whole forest often resounds when the animals, startled from 
their sleep, scream in terror at the noise made by bands of its 
inhabitants flying from some night-prowling foe. Their anxiety 
and terror before a thunder-storm is excessive, and all nature 
seems to partake in the dread. The tops of the lofty trees rustle 
ominously, though not a breath of air agitates them ; a hollow 
whistling in the high regions of the atmosphere comes as a warn- 
ing from the black floating vapour ; midnight darkness envelops 
the ancient forests, which soon after groan and creak with the 
blast of the hurricane. The gloom is rendered still more hideous 
by the vivid lightning and the stunning crash of thunder. Even 
fishes are affected with the general consternation ; for in a few 
minutes the Amazons rages in waves like a stormy sea. 

The Llanos of the Orinoco and Venezuela, covered with long 
grass, form the third department of South American low lands, 
and occupy 153,000 square miles between the deltas of the 
Orinoco and the river Coqueta, flat as the surface of the sea. It 
is possible to travel over these flat plains for 1100 miles from the 
delta of the Orinoco to the foot of the Andes of Paste; frequently 
there is not an eminence a foot high in 270 square miles. They 
are twice as long as they are broad; and as the wind blows con- 
stantly from the east, the climate is the more ardent the farther 
west. These steppes for the most part are destitute of trees or 
bushes, yet in some places they are dotted with the mauritia and 
other palm-trees. Flat as these plains are, there are in some 
places two kinds of inequalities ; one consists of banks or shoals 
of grit or compact limestone, five or six feet high, perfectly level 
for several leagues, and imperceptible except on their edges : the 
other inequality can only be detected by the barometer or levelhng 



GEOLOGICAL NOTICE. 109 

instruments ; it is called a Mesa, and is an eminence rising im- 
perceptibly to the height of some fathoms. Small as the elevation 
is, a mesa forms the watershed from S.W. to N.E., between the 
affluents of the Orinoco and the streams flowing to the northern 
coast of Terra Firma. In the wet season, from April to the end 
of October, the tropical rains pour down in torrents, and hundreds 
of square miles of the Llanos are inundated by the floods of the 
rivers. The water is sometimes 12 feet deep in the hollows, in 
which so many horses and other animals perish, that the ground 
smells of musk, an odour peculiar to many South American 
quadrupeds. From the flatness of the country too, the waters of 
some affluents of the Orinoco are driven backv/ards by the floods of 
that river, especially when aided by the wind, and form temporary 
lakes. When the waters subside, these steppes, manured by the 
sediment, are mantled with verdure, and produce ananas, with 
occasional groups of fan palm-trees, and mimosas skirt the rivers. 
When the dry weather returns, the grass is burnt to powder; the 
air is filled with dust raised by currents occasioned by difference 
of temperature, even where there is no wind. If by any accident 
a spark of fire falls on the scorched plains, a conflagration spreads 
from river to river, destroying every animal, and leaves the clayey 
soil sterile for years, till vicissitudes of weather crumble the brick- 
like surface into earth. 

The Llanos lie between the equator and the Tropic of Cancer ; 
the mean annual temperature is about 84° of Fahrenheit. The 
heat is most intense during the rainy season, when tremendous 
thunder-storms are of common occurrence. 



GEOLOGY OF SOUTH AMERICA. 

The most remarkable circumstance in the geological features 
of the South American continent is the vast development of 
volcanic force, which is confined to the chain of the Andes, and 
where it has acquired a considerable breadth, as in the Peru- 
BoHvian portion, to the part nearest the sea-coast. It would be 
wrong, however, to say that there are no traces of modern vol- 
canic action at a great distance from the sea:^^ {^ ig one of those 

52 Mr. Pentland found a very perfect volcanic crater, with -well- 
marked currents of lava issuing from it — a rare occurrence in the 
higher craters of the Andes — near to San Pedro de Cacha, in the valley 
of the Yucay (lat. 14° 12', long. 71° 15' W., and at an elevation of 
12,000 feet), near to the ruins of the Temple of the Inga Viracocha, a 
monument and a locality celebrated in Peruvian legend, the nearest 
point of the sea-coast being 175 miles distant. It is probable that many 
of the most celebrated raining districts of Alto Peru — Potosi, for in- 
10 



110 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

theories which recent discoveries in both continents have proved 
the fallacy of. The volcanic vents occur in the Andes in linear 
groups : the most southern of these is that of Chile, extending 
from the latitude of Chiloe to that of Santiago, 42° to 83° S. : in 
this space exist five well-authenticated craters in ignition — the 
most southern is the volcano of Llanquihae or Osorno, observed 
by M. Gaye, and the most northern that of Miaypu, the fires of 
which are sometimes seen from the capital of Chile. Between 
the 32d parallel and the Bolivian frontier there does not appear 
to be a single volcanic vent, but in the province of Atacama rises 
the volcano of San Pedro of Atacama. The mountain of Isluga, 
in the province of Tarapaca, is said to be an active volcano, but 
the great centre of volcanic action in this part of the Western 
Cordillera extends from 18° 10' to 16° 20', where the Andes have 
changed their direction from being parallel to the meridian to one 
inclined nearly 45 degrees to that line. The trach3'tic giant 
domes of the Andes, Sahama, and the Nevado of Chuquibamba 
mark the N. and S. limits of this line of vents : the former, one 
of the most perfect trachytic pyramids in the Andes, rises to a 
height of 22,350 feet, in lat. 18° 7' and long. 68° 54' W. ; near to 
it are the twin Nevados of Pomarape and Parinacota, one of which 
appears to emit smoke. The group of snowy peaks seen from 
Arica, the centre of which, the Nevado of Tacora, is in lat. 17° 
43', offers a broken-down crater, and an active solfaterra, on one 
of its sides. Between this point and the volcano of Arequipa no 
active volcano has been observed. It is well known that the latter 
has vomited flames and ashes, and spread desolation around, at a 
comparatively recent period; the crater of Uvinas, active in the 
16th centuiy, is now filled up and completely extinct. Between 
the latitude of Arequipa (16° 24') and the Equatorial group of 
volcanos, the Andes do not present a single active crater. This 
Equatorial group extends over a meridional line of 3| degrees — 
between the Peak of Sangay and the volcano of Los Pastes. The 
most remarkable of these volcanic vents are the Sangay, Tungu- 
ragua, and Cotopaxi, all situated in the Cordillera most remote 
from the ocean. Pichincha burned as recently as 1831 ; and 
north of the Equator, Imbaburu, the volcanos of Chiles, of Cum- 
bal, of Tuqueres or Los Pastes, of Sotara and Purace, mark the 
extension of actual volcanic action into our hemisphere. 

stance, situated in a porphyry — have been upheaved at a very recent 
period. Modern volcanic rocks are not wanting in the valley of the 
Desaguadero; volcanic conglomerates exist in the deep ravines round 
the city of La Paz. lat. 16°"30'; and the mountain of Litanias, wnich 
furnishes the building-stone for that Bolivian city (lat. 16° 42', long. 68° 
19^'), is composed of a most perfect trachyte, and rises to a height of 
14^500 feet abovCj and at a distance of 160 miles from the Pacific. 



GEOLOGICAL NOTICE. HI 

Granite, which seems to be the base of the whole continent, is 
widely spread to the east and. south : it appears in Tierra del Fuego 
and in the Patagonian Andes abundantly, and at great elevations, 
and in Chile and southern Peru forms the line of hills parallel to the 
Pacific, and where are situated the mineral riches of the former 
republic ; but it comes into view so rarely in the northern parts of 
the chain, that Baron Humboldt says a person might travel years 
in the Andes of Peru and Gluito without falling in with it. He 
never saw it at a greater height above the sea than 11,500 feet. 
Gneiss is here and there associated with the granite, but micaschist 
is by much the most common of the crystalline rocks, duartz 
rock, probably of the Devonian period, is much developed, gener- 
ally mixed with mica, and rich in gold and specular iron. It 
sometimes extends several leagues in the western declivities of 
Peru 6000 feet thick. Red sandstone, with its gypseous and 
saliferous marls, of the age of our English red marl, of vast dimen- 
sions, occurs in the Andes, and on the table-land east of them, 
where, in some places, as in Colombia, it spreads over thousands 
of square miles to the shores of the Atlantic. It is widely ex- 
tended at altitudes of 10,000 and 12,000 feet — for example, on 
the plains of Tarqui and in the valley of Cuenca. Coal is some- 
times associated with it, and is found in the Andes of Pasco, in 
Peru, Pl,750 feet above the sea. 

Porphyry abounds all over the Andes, from Patagonia to Colom- 
bia, at every elevation, on the slopes and summits of the moun 
tains rising to the greatest elevation, but of very different ages 
and mineralogical characters. One variety which frequently 
occurs is rich in metals, and hence has been designated as metal- 
liferous: in it are situated some of the most celebrated silver 
mines of Peru, those of Potosi, Oruro, Puno. The bare and pre- 
cipitous porphyry-rocks give great variety to the colouring of the 
Andes, especially in Chile, where purple, tile-red, and brown are 
contrasted with the snow on the summit of the chain.^^ 

Trachyte is almost as abundant as porphyry; many of the 
loftiest parts, and all the great dome-shaped mountains, are formed 
of it. Masses of this rock, from 14,000 to 18,000 feet thick, are 
seen on Chimborazo and Pichincha. Prodigious quantities of 
volcanic products, lava, tufa, and obsidian, occur on the western 
face of the Andes, where volcanos are active. On the eastern 
side there are none. This is especially the case in that part of 
the chain lying between the equator and Chile. The Bolivian 
Cordilleras, which encircle the valley of Desaguadero, furnish a 
striking example. The Cordillera of the coast is composed of 
crystalline and stratified rocks at its base, and of trachytes, obsidian, 

^ Dr. PoDppig. 



112 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

and trachytic conglomerates at greater elevations, while the eastern 
Cordillera consists of stratified rocks of the Silurian system, with 
granites, quartziferous porphyries, and syenites injected, and of 
secondary rocks of the triassic period, and marls, containing 
gypsum, oolitic limestone, and rock-salt of the most beautiful 
colours. Towards Chile, and throughout the Chihan range, the 
case is different, because active volcanos are there in the centre 
of the chain. 

Sea-shells of different geological periods are found at various 
elevations, which shows that many upheavings and subsidences 
have taken place in the chain of the Andes.^* The whole range, 
after twice subsiding some thousand feet, was brought up by a 
slow movement in mass during the Eiocene period, after which 
it sank down once more several hundred feet, to be again uplifted 
to its present level by a slow and often interrupted motion. 
These vicissitudes are very perceptible, especially at its southern 
extremity. Stems of large trees, which Mr. Darwin found in a 
fossil state in the Uspallata range, on the eastern declivity of the 
Chilian Andes, now 700 miles distant from the Atlantic, exhibit a 
remarkable example of such vicissitudes. These trees, with the 
volcanic soil on which they had grown, had sunk from the beach 
to the bottom of a deep ocean, from which, after five alternations 
of sedimentary deposits and deluges of submarine lava of pro- 
digious thickness, the whole mass was raised up, and now forms 
the Uspallata chain. Subsequently, by the wearing of streams, 
the embedded trunks have been brought into view in a sihcified 
state, projecting from the soil in which they grew — now solid 
rock. 

"Vast and scarcely comprehensible as such changes must ever 
appear, yet they have all occurred within a period recent when 
compared with the history of the Cordillera ; and the Cordillera 
itself is absolutely modern compared with many of the fossiliferous 
strata of Europe and America. "^^ 

From the quantity of shingle and sand in the i^alleys in the 
lower ridges, as well as at altitudes from 7000 to 9000 feet above 
the present level of the sea, it appears that the whole area of the 
Chilian Andes has been rising for centuries by a gradual motion; 
and the coast is now rising by the same imperceptible degrees, 
though it is sometimes suddenly elevated by a succession of small 
upheavings of a few feet by earthquakes, similar to that which 
shook the continent for 100() miles on the 20th of February, 1835. 

^ Mr. Pentland found fossil shells of the Silurian period at a height 
of 17,500 feet, on the BoUvian Nevado of Antakaua, lat. 16° 21', and 
those of the carboniferous limestone as high as 14,200 in several parts 
of Upper Peru. 

^^ J\ir. Darwin's Journal of Travels in South America. 



GEOLOGICAL NOTICE. 113 

On the eastern side of the Andes the land from Tierra del 
Fuego to the Rio de la Plata has been raised en masse by one 
great elevating force, acting equally and imperceptibly for 2000 
miles, within the period of the shell-fish now existing, which, in 
many parts of these plains, even still retain their colours. The 
gradual upward movement was interrupted by at least eight long 
periods of rest, marked by the edges of the successive plains, 
which, extending from south to north, had formed so many lines 
of sea-coast, as they rose higher and higher between the Atlantic 
and the Andes. It appears, from the shingle and fossil shells 
found on both sides of the Cordillera, that the whole south-western 
extremity of the continent has been rising slowly for a long time, 
and indeed the whole Andean chain. The rise on the coast of 
Chile has been at the rate of several feet in a century ; but it has 
diminished eastward, till, in the Patagonian plains and Pampas, 
it has been only a few inches in the same line. 

The instability of the southern part of the continent is less 
astonishing, if it be considered that at the time of the earthquake 
of 1835 the volcanos in the Chilian Andes were in eruption con- 
temporaneously for 720 miles in one direction a^d 400 in another, 
so that in all probability there was a subterranean lake of burning 
lava below this end of the continent twice as large as the Black 
Sea.^8 

The terraced plains of Patagonia, which extend hundreds of 
miles along the coast, are tertiary strata, not in basins, but in one 
great deposit, above which lies a thick stratum of a white puma- 
ceous substance, extending at least 500 miles, a tenth part of 
which consists of marine infusoria. Over the whole lies the 
shingle already mentioned, spread over the coast for 700 miles in 
length, with a mean breadth of 200 miles, and 50 feet thick. 
These myriads of pebbles, chiefly of porphyry, have been torn 
from the rocks of the Andes, and water-worn, at a period subse- 
quent to the deposition of the tertiary strata — a period of incal- 
culable duration. All the plains of Tierra del Fuego and Pata- 
gonia, on both sides of the Andes, are strewed with huge boulders, 
which have been supposed to have been transported by icebergs 
which had descended to lower latitudes in ancient times than 
they do now — observations of great interest, which we owe to 
Mr. Darwin. 

The stunted vegetation of these sterile plains was sufficient to 
nourish large animals of the pachydermata tribe, now extinct, 
even at a period when the present shell-fish of the Patagonian 
seas existed. 

The Pampas of Buenos Ayres are entirely alluvial, the deposit 

^ Mr. Darwin's Journal of Travels in South America. 
10* 



114 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

of the Rio de la Plata. Granite prevails to the extent of 2000 
miles along the coast of Brazil, and with syenite forms the base 
of the table-land. The superstructure of the latter consists of 
metamorphic and old igneous rocks, sandstone, clay-slate, lime- 
stone, in which are large caverns with bones of extinct animals, 
and alluvial soil. Gold is found in the alluvial soil on the banks 
of the rivers, and diamonds, so abundant in that country, in a 
ferruginous conglomerate of a very recent period. 

The fertile soil of the Silvas has travelled from afar: washed 
down from the Andes, it has been gradually deposited, and 
manured by the decay of a thousand forests." Granite again 
appears, in more than its usual ruggedness, in the table-land and 
mountains of the Parima system. The sandstone of the Andes 
is found there also ; and on the plains of Esmeralda it caps the 
granite of the solitary prism-shaped Duida, the culminating 
mountain of the Parima system. Limestone appears in the 
Brigantine or CocoUar, the most southern of the three ranges of 
the coast-chain of Venezuela; the other two are of granite, 
metamorphic rocks, and crystalline schists, torn by earthquakes 
and worn by the^ea, which has deeply indented that coast. The 
chain of islands in the Spanish main is merely the wreck of a 
more northern ridge, broken up into detached masses by these 
irresistible powers. 



CHAPTER X. 

Central America — West Indian Islands — Geological Notice. 

Taking the natural divisions of the continent alone into consid- 
eration. Central America may be regarded as lying between the 
Isthmus of Panama and Darien and the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, 
and consequently in a tropical climate. This narrow tortuous 
strip of land, which unites the continents of North and South 
America, stretches from S.E. to N.W. about 1200 miles, varying 
in breadth from 20 to 300 or 400 miles. 

As a regular chain, the Andes descend suddenly at the Isthmus 
of Panama, but as a mass of high land they continue through 
Central America and Mexico, in an irregular mixture of table- 
lands and mountains. The mass of high land which forms the 
central ridge of the country, and the watershed between the two 
oceans, is very steep on its western side, and runs near the coast 
of the Pacific, where Central America is narrow ; but to the north, 
where it btcomes wider, the high land recedes to a greater distance 



CENTIiAL AMERICA. 115 

from the shore than the Andes do in any other part between 
Cape Horn and Mexico. 

This country consists of three distinct groups, divided by val- 
leys which run from sea to sea, namely, Costarica, the group of 
Honduras and Nicaragua, and the group of Guatemala.^' 

The plains of Panama, very little raised above the sea, and in 
some parts studded with hills, follow the direction of the isthmus for 
280 miles, and end at the Bay of Parita. From thence the forest- 
covered Cordillera of Veragua, supposed to be 9000 feet high, 
extends to the small but elevated table-land of Costarica, sur- 
rounded by volcanos, and terminates at the plain of Nicaragua, 
which, together with its lake, occupies an area of 30,000 square 
miles, and forms the second break in the great Andean chain. 
The lake is only 128 feet above the Pacific, from which it is 
separated by a line of active volcanos. The river San Juan de 
Nicaragua flows from its eastern end into the Caribbean Sea, and 
at its northern extremity it is connected with the smaller lake of 
Managua or Leon by the river Penaloya. By this water-line it 
has been projected to unite the two seas. The high land begins 
again, after an interval of 170 miles, with the Mosquito country 
and Honduras, which mostly consist of table-lands and higk 
mountains, some of which are volcanos. 

Guatemala is a table-land intersected by deep valleys, which 
lies between the plain of Comayagua and the Isthmus of Tehuan- 
tepec. It spreads to the east in the peninsula of Yucatan, which 
terminates at Cape Catoche, and encompasses the Bay of Hon- 
duras with terraces of high mountains. The table-land of Guate- 
mala consists of undulating verdant plains of great extent, of the 
absolute height of 5000 feet, fragrant with flowers. In the 
southern part of the table-land the cities of Old and New Guate- 
mala are situate, 12 miles apart. The portion of the plain on 
which the new city stands is bounded on the west by the three 
volcanos of Pacayo, del Fuego, and de Agua ; these, rising from 
7000 to 10,000 feet above the plain, lie close to the new cit\'' on 
the west, and form a scene of wonderful boldness and beauty. 
The Volcano de Agua, at the foot of which Old Guatemala stands, 
is a perfect cone, verdant to its summit, which occasionally pours 
forth torrents of boiling water and stones. The old city has been 
twice destroyed by it, and is now nearly deserted on account of 
earthquakes. The Volcano del Fuego generally emits smoke 
from one of its peaks ; and the Volcano de Pacayo is only occa- 
sionally active. The wide grassy plains are cut by deep valleys 
to the north, where the high land of Guatemala ends in parallel 
ridges of mountains, called the Cerro Pelado, which run from 

^" Johnston's Physical Alias. 



116 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

east to west along the 94lh meridian, filling half the Isthmus of 
Tehuantepec, Avhich is 140 miles broad, and unites the table- 
land of Guatemala with that of Mexico. 

Though there are large savannahs on the high plains of Guate- 
mala, there are also magnificent primeval forests, as the name of 
the country implies, Guatemala signifying, in the Mexican lan- 
guage, a place covered with trees. The banks of the Rio de la 
Papian, or Usumasinta, which rises in the alpine lake of Lacandon, 
and flows over the table-land to the Gulf of Mexico, are beautiful 
beyond description. 

The coasts of Central America are generally narrow, and in 
some places the mountains and high lands come close to the 
water's edge. The sugar-cane is indigenous, and on the low 
lands of the eastern coast all the ordinary produce of the West 
Indian islands is raised, besides much that is pecuhar to the 
country. 

As the climate is cool on the high lands, the vegetation of the 
temperate zone is there in perfection. On the low lands, as in 
other countries where heat and moisture are in excess, and where 
nature is for the most part undisturbed, vegetation is vigorous to 
rankness: forests of gigantic timber seek the foul air above an 
impenetrable undergrowth, and the mouths of the rivers are 
dense masses of jungle with mangroves and reeds 100 feet high, 
yet dehghtful savannahs vary the scene, and wooded mountains 
dip into the water. 

Nearly all the coast of the Pacific is skirted by an alluvial 
plain, of small width, and generally very different in character 
from that on the Atlantic side. In a line along the western side 
of the table-land and the mountains there is a continued succes- 
sion of volcanos, at various distances from the shore, and at 
various heights, on the declivity of the table-land. It seems as if 
a great crack or fissure had been produced in the earth's surface, 
along the junction of the mountains and the shore, through which 
the internal fire had found a vent. There are more than 20 active 
volcanoes in succession between the 10th and 20th parallels of 
north latitude ; some higher than the mountains of the central 
ridge, and several subject to violent eruptions. Altogether:, there 
are 39 in Central America, 17 of which are in Guatemala — a 
greater number than in any other country, Java excepted. 

The Colombian Archipelago, or West Indian Islands, which 
may be regarded as the wreck of a submerged part of the con- 
tinent of South and Central America, consists of three distinct 
groups, namely, the Lesser Antillas or Caribbean Islands, the 
Greater Antillas, and the Bahama or Lucay Islands. Some of 
the Lesser Antillas are flat, but their general character is bold, 
with a single mountain or group of mountains in the centre, 



WEST INDIA ISLANDS. 117 

which slopes to the sea all arOund, more precipitously on the 
eastern side, which is exposed to the force of the Atlantic cur- 
rent. Trinidad is the most southerly of a line of magnificent 
islands, which form a semi-circle, enclosing the Caribbean Sea, 
with its convexity facing the east. The row is single to the 
island of Gaudeloupe, where it splits into two chains, known as 
the Windward and Leeward Islands. Trinidad, Tobago, St. 
Lucia, and Dominica are particularly mountainous, and the 
mountains are cut by deep narrow ravines, or gullies, covered 
by ancient forests. The volcanic islands, which are mostly in 
the single part of the chain, have conical mountains bristled 
with rocks of a still more rugged form ; but almost all the islands 
of the Lesser Antillas have a large portion of excellent vegetable 
soil in a high state of cultivation. Most of them are surrounded 
by coral reefs, which render navigation dangerous, and there is 
little intercourse between these islands, and still less with the 
Greater Antillas, on account of the prevailing winds and currents, 
which make it difficult to return. The Lesser Antillas terminate 
with the group of the Virgin Islands, which are small and flat, 
some only a few feet above the sea, and most of them are mere 
coral rocks. 

The four islands which form the group of the Greater Antillas 
are the largest and finest in the Archipelago. Porto Rico, Haiti 
or San Domingo, and Jamaica, separated from the Virgin Islands 
by a narrow channel, lie in a line parallel to the coast-chain of 
Venezuela, from east to west; while Cuba, by a serpentine bend, 
separates the Caribbean Sea, or Sea of the Antillas, from the Gulf 
of Mexico. Porto Rico is 90 miles long and 86 broad, with wooded 
mountains passing through its centre nearly from east to west, 
which furnish abundance of water. There are extensive savan- 
nahs in the interior, and very rich soil on the northern coast, but 
the climate near the sea is unhealthy. 

Haiti or San Domingo, 340 miles long and 132 broad, has a 
chain of mountains in its centre, extending from east to west like 
all the mountains in theGreater Antillas, the highest point of A^ich 
is 9000 feet above the sea. A branch diverges from the main 
stem to Cape Tiburon, so that Haiti contains a great proportion of 
high land. The mountains are susceptible of cultivation nearly 
to the summit, and* are clothed with undisturbed tropical forests, 
'i'he extensive plains are well watered, and the soil, though not 
deep, is productive. 

Jamaica, the most valuable of the British possessions in the West 
Indies, has an area of 425G square miles, of which 110,000 acres 
are cultivated, chiefly as sugar-plantations. The principal chain 
of the Blue Mountains lies in the centre of the island, from east to 
west, with so sharp a crest that in some places it is only four yards 



118 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

across. The offsets from it cover all the eastern part of the island ; 
some of them are very high. The more elevated ridges are flanked 
by lower ranges, descending to verdant savannahs. The escarp- 
ments are wild, the declivities steep, and mingled with stately 
forests. The valleys are very narrow, and not more than a twen- 
tieth part of the island is level ground. There are many small 
rivers, and the coast-line is 500 miles long, with at least 30 good 
harbours. The mean summer-heat is 80° of Fahrenheit, and that 
of winter is 75°. The plains are often unhealthy, but the air in 
the mountains is salubrious; fever has never prevailed at the ele- 
vation of 2500 feet. 

Cuba, the largest island in the Colombian Archipelago, has an 
area of 3615 square leagues, and 200 miles of coast, but so beset 
with coral reefs, sandbanks, and rocks, that only a third of it is 
accessible. Its mountains, which attain the height of 8000 feet, 
occupy the centre and fill the eastern part of the island, in a great 
longitudinal line. No island in these seas is more important with 
regard to situation and natural productions; and although much 
of the low ground is swampy and unhealthy, there are vast savan- 
nahs, and about a seventh part of the island is cultivated. 

The Bahama Islands are the least valuable and least interesting 
part of the Archipelago. The group consists of about 500 islands, 
many of them mere rocks, lying east of Cuba and the coast of 
Florida, Twelve are rather large, and are cultivated; and though 
arid, they produce Campeche or log-wood and mahogany. The 
most intricate labyrinth of shoals and reefs, chiefly of corals, madre- 
pores, and sand, encompass these islands ; some of them rise to the 
surface, and are adorned with groves of palm-trees. The Great 
Bahama is the first part of the New World on which Columbus 
landed — the next was Haiti, where his ashes rest. 

The geology of Central America is Httle known; nevertheless 
it appears, from the confused mixture of table-lands and mountain- 
chains in all directions, that the subterraneous forces must have 
acted more partially and irregularly than either in South or North 
America. Granite, gneiss, and mica-slate form the substrata of 
the country; but the abundance of igneous rocks bears witness to 
strong volcanic action, both in ancient and in modern times, which 
still maintains its activity in the volcanic groups of Guatemala and 
Mexico. 

From the identity of the fossil remains of extinct quadrupeds, 
there is every reason to beheve that the West Indian Archipelago 
was once part of South America, and that the rugged and tortuous 
isthmus of Central America, and the serpentine chain of islands 
winding from Cumana to the peninsula of Florida, are but the 
shattered remains of an unbroken continent. The powerful vol- 
canic action in Central America and Mexico, the volcanic nature 



MEXICAN MOUNTAINS. 119 

of many of the West Indian islands, and the still-existing fire in 
St. Vincent's, together with the tremendous earthquakes to which 
the whole region is subject, render it more than probable that the 
Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico are one great area of sub- 
sidence, which possibly has been increased by the erosion of the 
Gulf-stream and ground-swell — a temporary current of great impe- 
tuosity, common among the West Indian islands from October to May. 
The subsidence of this extensive area must have been very great, 
since the water is of considerable depth between the islands, and 
it must have taken place after the destruction of the great quad- 
rupeds, and consequently at a very recent geological period. The 
elevation of the table-land of Mexico may have been a contempo- 
raneous event. In the Colombian Archipelago, volcanic action is 
confined to the smaller islands, which, forming a line in a meri- 
dional direction, extend from 12° to 18° N., and which may be 
designated as the Caribbean range : it commences with Grenada 
and ceases with St. Eustatius. St. Vincent, St. Lucia, Martinique, 
a great portion of Guadaloupe, Montserrat, Nevis, and St. Kitts 
are volcanic ; most of them possess craters recently extinct, which 
have vomited ashes and lava within historical periods ; whilst the 
less elevated of the Leeward and Windward Islands, Tobago, Bar- 
badoes, Deseada, Antigua, Barbuda and St. Bartholomew's, with 
the Virgin Islands and Bahamas, are composed either of calcare- 
ous or coral rocks. 



CHAPTER XL 



North America — Table-Land and Mountains of Mexico — The Rocky 
Mountains — The Maritime Chain and Mountains of Russian America- 

According to the natural division of the continent, North America 
begins about the 20th degree of north latitude, and terminates in 
the Arctic Ocean. It is longer than South America, but the irre- 
gularity of its outline renders it impossible to estimate its area. 
Its greatest length is about 5100 miles, and its breadth, at the widest 
part, is 3500 miles. 

The general structure of North America is still more simple than 
that of the southern part of the continent. The table-lands of 
Mexico and the Rocky Mountains, which are the continuation of 
the high land of the Andes, run along the western side, but at so 
great a distance from the Pacific as to admit of another system of 
mountains along the coast. The immense plains to the east are 
divided longitudinally by the Alleghany Mountains, which stretch 



120 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

from the Carolinas to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, parallel to the 
Atlantic, and at no great distance from it. Although the general 
direction of the mountains is from south to north, yet, as they main- 
tain a degree of parallelism to the two coasts, they diverge towards 
the north— one in clinging towards the north-west, and the other 
towards the north-east. The long narrow plain between the Atlantic 
and the Alleghanies is divided, thoughout its length, by a line of 
cliffs not more than 200 or 300 feet above the Atlantic plain, the 
out-cropping edge of the Second Terrace, or Atlantic Slope, whose 
rolling surface goes west to the foot of the mountains. 

An enormous table-land occupies the greater part of Mexico or 
Anahuac. It begins at the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, and extends 
north-west to the 42d parallel of north latitude, a distance of about 
1600 miles, which is nearly equal to the distance from the north 
extremity of Scotland to Gibraltar. It is narrow towards the south, 
and expands towards the north-west till about the latitude of the 
city of Mexico, where it attains its greatest breadth of 360 miles, 
and there also it is highest. The most easterly part in that parallel 
is 7500 feet above the sea, from whence it extends towards the 
west, the height being 7430 feet at the city of Mexico, and then 
gradually diminishes to 4000 feet towards the Pacific. 

Its height in California is not known, but it still bears the cha- 
racter of a table-land, and maintains an elevation of 6000 feet along 
the east side of the Sierra Madre, even to the 32d degree of north 
latitude, where it sinks to a lower level before joining the Rocky 
Mountains. The descent from this plateau to the low lands is 
very steep on all sides; on the east, especially, it is so precipitous 
that, seen from a distance, it is like a range of high mountains. 
There are only two carriage-roads to it from the Mexican Gulf, by 
passes 500 miles asunder — one at Xalapa, near Vera Cruz, the 
other at Saltillo, west of Monterey. The descent to the shores of 
the Pacific is almost equally rapid, and that to the south no less 
so, where, for 300 miles between the plains of Tehuantepec and 
the Rio Yopez, it presses on the shores of the Pacific, and termi- 
nates in high mountains, leaving only a narrow margin of hilly 
maritime coast. Where the surface of the table-land is not tra- 
versed by mountains, it is as level as the ocean. There is a car- 
riage-road over it for 1500 miles, without hills, from the city of 
Mexico to Santa Fe. 

The southern part of the plateau is divided into four parts or 
distinct plains, surrounded by hills from 500 to lOpO feet high. 
In one of these, the plain of Tenochtiilan, surrounded by a wall of 
porphyritic mountains, stands the city of Mexico, once the capital 
of the empire of Montezuma, which must have far surpassed the 
modern city in extent and splendour, as many remains of its an- 
cient glory testify. It is 7430 feet above the sea. 



MEXICAN TABLE-LAND. 121 

One of the singular crevices through which the internal fire 
finds a vent, stretches from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific, 
directly across the table-land, in a line about 16 miles south of the 
city of Mexico. A very remarkable row of active volcanoes occurs 
along this parallel; Tuxtla, the most eastern of them, is in the 
95th degree of west longitude, near the Mexican Gulf, in a low 
range of wooded hills. More to the west stands the snow-shrouded 
cone of Orizaba, with its ever-fiery crater, seen like a star in the 
darkness of the night, which has obtained it the name of Cittala- 
petl — the "Mountain of the Star." Popocatepetl, the loftiest 
mountain in Mexico, 17,884 feet above the sea, lies still farther 
west, and is in a state of constant eruption, which, with the peaks 
of Iztacihuatl and of Toluca, form a kind of volcanic circus, in the 
midst of which the city of Mexico and it lake are situated. A 
chain of smaller volcanoes unites the three. On a plain on the west- 
ern slope of the table-land, and about 70 miles in a straight line 
from the Pacific, is the volcanic cone of Jorullo.^"^^ It suddenly 
appeared, and rose 1683 feet above the plain, on the night of the 
29th of September, 1759, and is the highest of six mountains whick 
have been thrown up on this part of the table-land since the mid- 
dle of last century. The great cone of Colima, the last of this vol- 
canic series, stands insulated in the plain of that name, between 
the western dechvity of the table-land and the Pacific. 

A high range of mountains extends along the eastern margin 
of the table-land to the Real de Catorce, and the surface of the 
plain is divided into two parts by the Sierra Madre, which begins 
at 21° of N. lat. ; and, after running north about 60 miles, its 
continuity is broken into the insulated ridges of the Sierra Alta- 
mina, and the group containing the celebrated silver-mines of 
Fresnillo and Zacatecas ; it soon after resumes its character of a 
regular chain, and, with a breadth of 100 miles, proceeds in 
parallel ridges and longitudinal valleys to New Mexico, where it 
skirts both banks of the Rio Bravo del Norte, and joins the 
Sierra Verde, the most southern part of the Rocky Mountains, in 
40° of N. lat. 

To the south, some points of the Sierra Madre are said to be 
10,000 feet high and 4000 feet above their base ; and between 
the parallels of 36° and 42°, where the chain is the watershed 
between the Rio Colorado and the Rio Bravo del Norte, they are 
still higher, and perpetually covered with snow. The mountains 
on the left bank of the last-mentioned river are the eastern ridges 
of the Sierra Madre, and contain the sources of the innumerable 
affluents of the Missouri and other rivers that flow into the Missis- 
sippi and Mexican Gulf. 

68 Baron Humboldt. 
11 



122 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

Deep cavities, called Barancas, are a characteristic feature of 
the table-lands of Mexico: they are long rents, two or three miles 
in breadth, and many more in length, often descending 1000 feet 
below the surface of the plain, with a brook or the tributary of 
some river flowing through them. Their sides are precipitous 
and rugged, with overhanging rocks covered with large trees. 
The intense heat adds to the contrast between these hollows and 
the bare plains, where the air is more cool. 

Vegetation varies with the elevation ; consequently, the splen- 
dour which adorns the low lands vanishes on the high plains, 
which, though producing much grain and pasture, are often 
saline, sterile, and treeless, except in some places where oaks 
grow to an enormous size, free of underwood. 

The Rocky Mountains run 1500 miles in two parallel chains 
from the Sierra Verde to the mouth of the Mackenzie river in the 
Arctic Ocean, sometimes united by a transverse ridge. In some 
places the eastern range rises to the snow-line, and even far 
above it, as in Mounts Hooper and Brown ; but the general 
elevation is only above the hne of trees. The western range is 
not so high till north of the 55th parallel, where both ranges are 
of the same height, and frequently higher than the snow-hne. 
They are generally barren, though the transverse valleys have 
fertile spots with grass, and sometimes trees. Their only offset 
in the south is the Saba and Ozark mountains, which run through 
Texas to the Mississippi. The long valley between the two rows 
of the Rocky Mountains, which is 100 miles wide, must have 
considerable elevation in the south, since the tributaries of the 
Colombia river descend from it in a series of rapids and cataracts 
for nearly 100 miles ; and it is probably still higher towards the 
soiirces of the Peace river, where the mountains, only 1500 feet 
above it, are perpetually covered with snow. The Sierra Verde 
is 490 miles from the Pacific, but, as the coast trends due north 
to the Sound of Juan de Fuca, the western range of the Rocky 
Mountains maintains a distance of 380 miles from the ocean, 
from that point to the latitude of Behring's Sea, in 60° of N. lat. 

The mountains on the west coast consist of two chains, one of 
which, beginning in Mexico, about the same latitude with the 
Sierra Madre, skirts the Gulf of Cahfornia on the east, and main- 
tains rather an inland course till north of the Oregon river, where 
it forms the Sea Alps of the coast ; and then, increasing in 
breadth as it passes through Russian America, it ends at Nootka 
Sound. 

The other chain, known as the Sea Alps of Cahfornia, begins 
at the extremity of the peninsula, and, running northward with 
increasing height close to the Pacific, it passes through the island 
of Quadra and Vancouver, and, after joining the Alps of the north- 



VALLEY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 123 

west coast, it terminates at Mount St. Elias, which is 17,860 feet 
high. A range of very high snowy mountains, which begins at 
Cape Mendocino, goes directly across both of these coast-chains, 
and unites them to the Rocky Mountains. It forms the water- 
shed between the Colorado, which goes to the Culf of California, 
and the affluents of the Oregon or Colombia river, which flows 
into the Pacific, and is continued to the east of the Rocky Moun- 
tains, at a less elevation, under the name of the Black Mountains, 
which stretch to the Missouri. Prairies extend between this 
coast-chain and the Rocky Mountains from California to the north 
of the Oregon river. The Oregon coast, for 200 miles, is a mass 
of undisturbed forest-thickets and marshes ; and north from it, 
with few exceptions, is a mountainous region of bold aspect, often 
reaching above the snow-line. A branch of the Sea Alps, which 
runs westward to Bristol Bay, has many active volcanos, and so 
has that which fills the promontory of Aliaska. 

The archipelagos and islands along the coast, from California 
to the promontory of Aliaska, have the same bold character as the 
mainland, and may be regarded as the tops of a submarine chain 
of table-land and mountains which constitute the most westerly 
ridge of the maritime chains. Prince of Wales's Archipelago 
contains seven active volcanos. 

The mountains on the coasts of the Pacific and the islands are 
in many places covered with colossal forests, but wide tracts in 
the south are sandy deserts. 



CHAPTER XII. 



North America (continued) — The Great Central PlainS; or Valley of the 
Mississippi — The Alleghany Mountains — ^The Atlantic Slope — The 
Atlantic Plain — Geological Notice — The Mean Height of the Conti- 
nents. 

The great central plain of North America, lying between the 
Rocky and Alleghany Mountains, and reaching from the Gulf of 
Mexico to the Arctic Ocean, includes the valleys of the Missis- 
sippi, St. Lawrence, Nelson, Churchill, and most of those of the 
Missouri, Mackenzie, and Coppermine rivers. It has an area of 
3,245,000 square miles, which is 245,000 square miles more than 
the central plain of South America, and about half the size of the 
great plain of the old continent, which is less fertile ; for although 
the whole of America is not more than half the size of the old 
continent, it contains at least as much productive soil. 



124 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

The plain, 5000 miles long, becomes wider towards the north, 
and has no elevations, except a low table-land which crosses it at 
the line of the Canadian lakes and the sources of the Mississippi, 
and is nowhere above 1500 feet high, and rarely more than 700: 
it is the watershed between the streams that go to the Arctic 
Ocean and those that flow to the Mississippi. The character of 
the plain is that of perfect uniformity, rising by a gentle regular 
ascent from the Gulf of Mexico to the sources of the Mississippi, 
which river is the great feature of the North American low lands. 
The ground rises in the same equable manner from the right bank 
of the Mississippi to the foot of the Rocky Mountains, but its 
ascent from the left bank to the Alleghanies is broken into hill 
and dale, containing the most fertile territory in the United States. 
Under so wide a range of latitude the plain embraces a great 
variety of soil, climate, and productions ; but, being almost in a 
state of nature, it is characterized in its middle and southern parts 
by interminable grassy savannahs, or prairies, and enormous 
forests, and in the far north by deserts which rival those of Siberia 
in dreariness. 

In the south a sandy desert, 400 or 500 mJles wide, stretches 
along the base of the Rocky Mountains to the 41st degree of N. 
lat. I'he dry plains of Texas and the upper region of the Arkan- 
sas have all the characteristics of Asiatic table-lands ; more to the 
north, the bare treeless steppes on the high grounds of the far 
west are burnt up in summer, and frozen in winter by biting blasts 
from the Rocky Mountains ; but the soil improves towards the 
Mississippi. At its mouth, indeed, there are marshes which 
cover J35,000 square miles, bearing a rank vegetation, and its 
delta is a labyrinth of streams and lakes, with dense brushwood. 
There are also large tracts of forest and saline ground, especially 
the Grand Saline between the rivers Arkansas and Neseikelongo, 
which is often covered two or three inches deep with salt like a 
fall of snow. All the cultivation on the right bank of the river is 
along the Gulf of Mexico and in the adjacent provinces, and is 
entirely tropical, consisting of sugar-cane, cotton, and indigo. 
The prairies, so characteristic of North America, then begin. 

To the right of the Mississippi these savannahs are sometimes 
rolling, but oftener level, and interminable as the ocean, covered 
with long rank grass of tender green, blended with flowers chiefly 
of the liliaceous kind, which fill the air with their fragrance. In 
the southern districts they are sometimes interspersed with groups 
of magnolia, tulip, and cotton trees ; and in the north with oak 
and black walnut. These are rare occurrences, as the prairies 
may be traversed for many days without finding a shrub, except 
on the banks of the streams, which are beautifully fringed with 
myrtles, azaleas, kalmias, andromedas, and rhododendrons. On 



VALLEY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 125 

the wide plains the only objects to be seen are countless herds of 
wild horses, bison, and deer. The country assumes a more 
severe aspect in higher latitudes. It is still capable of producing 
rye and barley in the territories of the Assinaiboia Indians, and 
round Lake Winnepeg there are great forests ; a low vegetation 
with grass follows, and towards the Icy Ocean the land is barren 
and covered with numerous lakes. 

East of the Mississippi there is a magnificent undulating coun- 
try about 300 miles broad, extending 1000 miles from south to 
north between that great river and the Alleghany mountains, mostly 
covered with trees. When America was discovered, one uninter- 
rupted forest spread over the country, from the Gulf of St. Law- 
rence and the Canadian lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, and from 
the Atlantic Ocean it crossed the Alleghany mountains, descended 
into the valley of the Mississippi on the north, but on the south 
it crossed the main stream of that river altogether, forming an 
ocean of vegetation of more than 1,000,000 of square miles, of 
which the greater part still remains. Although forests occupy 
so much of the country, there are immense prairies on the east 
side of the river also. Pine barrens, stretching far into the inte- 
rior, occupy the whole coast of the Mexican Gulf eastward from 
the Pearl River, through Alabama and a great part of Florida. 

These vast monotonous tracts of sand, covered with forests of 
gigantic pine-trees, are as peculiarly a distinctive feature of the 
continent of North America as the prairies, and are not confined 
to this part of the United States ; they occur to a great extent in 
North Carolina, Virginia, and elsewhere. Tennessee and Ken- 
tucky, though much cleared, still possess large forests, and the 
Ohio flows for hundreds of miles among magnificent trees, with 
an undergrowth of azaleas, rhododendrons, and other beautiful 
shrubs, matted together by creeping plants. There the American 
forests appear in all their glory : the gigantic deciduous cypress, 
and the tali tulip-tree, overtopping the forest by half its height, a 
variety of noble oaks, black walnuts, American plane, hickory, 
sugar-maple, and the lireodendron, the most splendid of the mag- 
nolia tribe, the pride of the forest. 

The Illinois waters a country of prairies ever fresh and green, 
and five new states are rising round the great lakes, whose terri- 
tory of 280,000 square miles contains 180,000,000 of acres of land 
of excellent quality. These states, still mostly covered with 
wood, lie between the lakes and the Ohio, and they reach from 
the Ohio river to the Upper Mississippi — a country twice as large 
as France, and six times the size of England. 

The quantity of water in the north-eastern part of the central 
plain greatly preponderates over that of the land ; the five principal 
lakes, Huron, Superior, Michigan, Erie, and Ontario, cover an 
11* 



126 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

area equal to Great Britain [and Ireland], without reckoning 
small lakes and rivers innumerable. 

[The north-west country, or Upper Mississippi valley, compre- 
hends about ten degrees of latitude, from 39° to 49° north, and 
about fourteen degrees of longitude, from 87° to 101° (from 10° 
to 24° from the meridian of Washington), and contains about 
300,000 square miles. A large part of this tract, consisting of the 
northern portion, is still held by the Indians. 

This country has sorne very peculiar natural features. The 
most remarkable of these is the numberless lakes which spangle 
its northern surface, the remains, no doubt, of a vast sea that once 
covered the whole country extending north from the Gulf of 
Mexico, possibly to Hudson's Bay. 

The country, from the outlets of the Illinois and Missouri rivers 
to St. Peter's, and from Lake Michigan to Council Bluffs, and 
beyond that point westerly, is a vast gently-inclined plane, ascend- 
ing to the north and to the west. Between the Mississippi and 
the lake the elevation above the Atlantic has been found to be a 
little more than 500 feet : and west of the river, on the same 
parallel, towards the Missouri, something more than 700 feet. 
At St. Peter's it is about 700 feet. Nicollet states that Council 
Bluffs is 1037 feet above the gulf; and the elevation of Rock 
Island, in the same latitude on the Mississippi, he says, is 528 ; 
and the height of Fort Pierre Chouteau, on the Missouri, on the 
same authority, is 1456 ; the lower end of Lake Pepin, in the 
same latitude (44° 24' north), is 710 feet, and the mouth of the 
St. Peter's, in about latitude 45°, is 744 feet. There are a few 
elevations above the general range, called mounds ; but with the 
exception of these, the surface is marked only by ravines running 
down to the beds of the streams, which are usually from one to 
two hundred feet lower. 

There are large tracts of this north-west country wholly desti- 
tute of tree or shrub, and covered only with a luxuriant growth 
of wild grass, and beautifully interspersed with flowers of every 
hue and variety, each successively making the prairie to look gay 
with their presence from April to October. This beautiful natural 
meadow yields bountiful returns for culture and toil bestowed 
upon it. It consists of a very dark-brown vegetable mould, and 
is mellow beyond the conception of those who are acquainted only 
with the hard, stiff soils of the Atlantic slope. This mould is 
from one and a half to two feet deep, and entirely free from gravel. 
The sub-soil is yellow light clay or clay loam, which resembles 
the soil of timbered lands. The country is a limestone formation. 
Timber is found only along the streams: it consists of elm, ash, 
black walnut, butternut, maple, mulberry, and iron-wood, on the 
bottoms ; and on the upland, white, red, black, and burr-oaks, shell- 



THE CANADAS. 127 

bark and common hickory, with, occasionally, linden, birch, wild- 
plum and cherry, locust, and some other trees. On the Wisconsin 
and St. Croix rivers are heavy growths of pine, from which sup- 
plies of lumber are carried down the Mississippi river.^^ 

The mighty rivers of this region must be measured by travel, 
the prairies must be crossed, and the lakes seen before the mind 
fully comprehends a description of them. *' To look at a prairie 
up or down," says Nicollet, "to ascend one of its undulations; to 
reach a small plateau (or, as the voyageurs call it, a prairie 
planche), moving from wave to wave over alternate swells and 
depressions; and, finally, to reach the vast interminable low 
prairie that extends itself in front, — be it for hours, days, or weeks, 
one never tires ; pleasurable and exhilarating sensations are all 
the time felt ; ennui is never experienced. Doubtless there are 
moments when excessive heat, a want of fresh-water, and other 
privations, remind one that life is toil; but these drawbacks are of 
short duration. There is almost always a breeze over them. The 
security that one feels in knowing that there are no concealed 
dangers — so vast is the extent which the eye takes in — no diffi- 
culties of road ; a far spreading verdure, relieved by a profusion 
of variously coloured flowers; the azure of the sky above, or the 
tempest that can be seen from its beginning to its end ; the beauti- 
ful modifications of the changing clouds; the curious looming of 
objects between earth and sky, taxing the ingenuity every moment 
to rectify: — all, everything, is calculated to excite the perceptions 
and keep alive the imagination. In the summer season, espe- 
cially, everything upon the prairies is cheerful, graceful, and 
animated. The Indians, with herds of deer, antelope, and buffalo, 
give life and motion to them. It is then they should be visited ; 
and I pity the man whose soul could remain unmoved under such 
a scene of excitement."] 

The Canadas contain millions of acres of good soil, covered 
with immense forests. Upper Canada is the most fertile, and in 
man}^ respects is one of the most valuable of the British colonies 
in the west: every European grain, and every plant that requires 
a hot summer and can endure a cold winter, thrives there. The 
forests consists chiefly of black and white spruce, the Weymouth 
and other pines — trees which do not admit of undergrowth : they 
grow to great height, like bare spars, with a tufted crown, casting 
a deep gloom below. The fall of large trees from age is a com- 
mon occurrence, and not without danger, as it often causes the 
destruction of those adjacent ; and an ice-storm is awful. 

After a heavy fall of snow, succeeded by rain and a partial thaw, 

5^ [Notes on the North-west, or Valley of the Upper Mississippi. 
By Wm. J. A. Bradford. New York, 1846.1 



128 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

a strong frost coats the trees and all their branches with trans- 
parent ice often au inch thick ; the noblest trees bend under the 
load, icicles hang from every bough, which come down in showers 
with the least breath of wind. The hemlock-spruce especially, 
with its long drooping branches, is then like a solid mass. If the 
wind freshens, the smaller trees become like corn beaten down 
by the tempest, while the large ones swing heavily in the breeze. 
The forest at last gives way under its load, tree comes down 
after tree with sudden and terrific violence, crushing all before 
them, till the whole is one wide uproar, heard from afar like suc- 
cessive discharges of artillery. Nothing, however, can be ima- 
gined more briUiant and beautiful than the effect of sunshine in a 
calm day on the frozen boughs, where every particle of the icy 
crystals sparkles, and nature seems decked in diamonds. ^° 

Although the subsoil is perpetually frozen at the depth of a few 
feet below the surface beyond the 56th degree of north latituxle, 
yet trees grow in some places up to the 64th parallel. Farther 
north the gloomy and majestic forests cease, and are succeeded by 
a bleak, barren waste, which becomes progressively more dreary 
as it approaches the Arctic Ocean. Four-fifths of it are like the 
wilds of Sibei*ia in surface and climate, covered many months in 
the year with deep snow. During the summer it is the resort of 
herds of rein-deer and bisons, which come from the south to 
browse on the tender short grass which then springs up along 
the streams and lakes. 

The Alleghany or Appalachian chain, which constitutes the 
second or subordinate system of North American mountains, 
separates the great central plain from that which lies along the 
Atlantic Ocean. Its base is a strip of table-land, from 1000 to 
3000 feet high, lying between the sources of the rivers Alabama 
and Yazoo, in the southern states of the Union, and New Bruns- 
wick, at the mouth of the river St. Lawrence. This high land is 
traversed throughout 1000 miles, between Alabama and Vermont, 
by from three to five parallel ridges of low mountains, rarely more 
than 3000 or 4000 feet high, and separated by fertile longitudinal 
valleys, which occupy more than two-thirds of its breadth of 100 
miles. In Virginia and Pennsylvania, the only part of the chain 
to which the name of the Alleghany mountains properly belongs, 
it is 150 miles broad, and the whole is computed to have an area 
of 2,000,000 of square miles. The parallelism of the ridges, and 
the uniform level of their summits, are the characteristics of this 
chain, which is lower and less wild than the Rocky Mountains. 
The uniformity of outline in the southern and middle parts of the 
chain is yery remarkable, and results from their peculiar struc- 

60 Mr. Taylor. 



THE ALLEGHANIES. 129 

ture.^^ These mountains have no central' axis, but consist of a 
series of convex and concave flexures, forming alternate hills and 
longitudinal valleys, running nearly parallel throughout their 
length, and cut transversely by the rivers that flow to the Atlan- 
tic on one hand, and to the Mississippi on the other. The water- 
shed nearly follows the windings of the coast from the point of 
Florida to the north-western extremity of the State of Maine.^^ 

The picturesque and peaceful scenery of the Appalachian 
mountains is well known ; they are generally clothed with a 
luxuriant vegetation, and their western slope is considered one of 
the finest countries in the United States. To the south they 
maintain a distance of 200 miles from the Atlantic, but approach 
close to the coast in the south-eastern part of the State of New 
York, from whence their general course is northerly to the river 
St. Lawrence. But the Blue Mountains, which form the most 
easterly ridge, are continued in the double range of the Green 
Mountains to Gaspe Point in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. They 
fill the Canadas, Maine, New Brunswnck, and Nova Scotia with 
branches as high as the mean elevation of the principal chain, 
and extend even to the dreary regions of Baffin's Bay. The 
chief Canadian branches are parallel to tlie river St, Lawrence. 
One goes N.E. from duebec ; and the Mealy Mountains, which 
are of much greater length, extend from Ottowa River to Sand- 
wich Bay, and, though low, are always covered with snow. 
Little is known of the high lands within the Arctic Circle, except 
that they probably extend from S.E. to N.W. 

The country between Hudson's Bay, the mouths of the Chur- 
chill and that of the Mackenzie river, is also an unknown region ; 
on the east it descends steeply to the coast, but the western part, 
known as the Barren Ground, is low and destitute of wood, 
except on the banks of the streams. The whole is covered with 
low precipitous hills. Not only the deep forests, but vegetation 
in general, diminishes as the latitude increases, till on the arctic 
shores the soil becomes incapable of culture, and the majestic 
forest is superseded by the arctic birch, which creeps on the 

61 Sir Charles Lyell's Travels in North America. 

62 A chain of mountains is assumed to be a three-sided horizontal 
prism, whose height is the mean elevation of the chain, and the base 
the mean length and breadth of the same, or the area on which the 
chain stands, and thus its mass may be computed approximately. It 
is evident that a table-land must have a greater eflect on the mean 
height of a continent than a chain of mountains, for, supposing both to 
be of the same base and altitude, one would be exactly double the 
other; and even if the mountains be the higher of the two, their upper 
parts contain much less solid matter than their lower on account of the 
intervals and deep valleys between the peaks. 



130 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

ground. Many of the islands along the north-eastern coasts, though 
little favoured by nature, produce flax and timber: and New- 
foundland, as large as England and Wales, maintains a popula- 
tion of 70,000 souls by its fisheries : it is nearer to Britain than 
any part of America — the distance from the port of St. John to 
the harbour of Valentia in Ireland is only 1656 nautical miles. 

The long and comparatively narrow plain which lies between 
the Appalachian mountains and the Atlantic extends from the 
Gulf of Mexico to the eastern coast of Massachusetts. At its 
southern extremity it joins the plain of the Mississippi, and 
gradually becomes narrower in its northern course to New Eng- 
land, where it merely includes the coast islands. It is divided 
throughout its length by a line of clifTs from 200 to 300 feet high, 
which begins in Alabama and ends on the coast of Massachusetts. 
This escarpment is the eastern edge of the terrace known as the 
Atlantic Slope, which rises above the Maritime or Atlantic Plain, 
and undulates westward to the foot of the Blue Mountains, the 
most eastern ridge of the Appalachian chain. It is narrow at its 
extremities in Alabama and New York, but in Virginia and the 
Carolinas it is 200 miles wide. The surface of the slope is of 
great uniformity ; ridges of hills and long valleys run along it 
parallel to the mountains, close to which it is 600 feet high. It 
is rich in soil and cultivation, and has an immense water power 
in the streams and rivers flowing from the mountains across it, 
which are precipitated over its rocky edge to the plains on the 
west. More than twenty-three rivers of considerably size fall in 
cascades down this ledge between New York and the Mississippi, 
affording scenes of great beauty .^^ 

Both land and water assume a new aspect on the Atlantic 
Plain. The rivers, after dashing over the rocky barrier, run in 
tranquil streams to the ocean, and the plain itself is a monotonous 
level, not more than 100 feet above the surface of the sea. Along 
the coast it is scooped into valleys and ravines, with innumerable 
creeks. 

The greater part of the magnificent countries east of the Alle- 
ghanies is in a high state of cultivation and commercial pros- 
perity, with natural advantages not surpassed in any country. 
Nature, however, still maintains her sway in some parts, espe- 
cially where pine-barrens and swamps prevail. The territory of 
the United States occupies 7,000,000 or 8,000,000 of square 
miles, the greater part of which is capable of producing every- 
thing that is useful to man, but not more than a twenty-sixth part 

63 The author is indebted to the "Physical Geography of North 
America," by H. D. Rogers, Esq,, of the United States, for much valua- 
ble information. 



GEOLOGICAL NOTICE. 131 

of it has been cleared. The climate is generally healthy, the soil 
fertile, abounding in mineral treasures, and it possesses every 
advantage from navigable rivers and excellent harbours. The 
outposts of civilization have already advanced half-way to the 
Pacific, and the tide of white men is continually and irresistibly 
pressing onwards to the ukimate extinction of the original pro- 
prietors of the soil — a melancholy, but not a sohtary, instance of 
the rapid extinction of a whole race. 

Crystalline and Silurian rocks, rich in precious and other 
metals, form the substratum of Mexico, for the most part covered 
with plutonic and volcanic formations and secondary limestone ; 
yet granite comes to the surface on the coast of Acapulco, and 
occasionally on the plains and mountains of the table-land. The 
Rocky Mountains are mostly Silurian, except the eastern ridge, 
which is of stratified crystalline rocks, amygdaloid and ancient 
volcanic productions. The coast-chain has the same character, 
with immense tracts of volcanic rocks, both ancient and modern, 
especially obsidian, which is nowhere developed on a greater 
scale, except in Mexico and the Andes. 

In North America, as in the southern part of the continent, 
volcanic action is entirely confined to the coast and high land 
along the Pacific. The numerous vents in Mexico aud Cali- 
fornia are often in great activity, and hot springs abound. 
Though a considerable intervals occurs north of them, where 
the fire is dormant, the country is full of igneous productions, 
and it again finds vent in Prince of Wales's Archipelago, which 
has seven active volcanos. From Mount St. Elias westward 
through the whole southern coast of the peninsula of Russian 
America and the Aleutian Islands, which form a semicircle 
between Cape Aliaska, in America, and the peninsula of Kamt- 
chatka, volcanic vents occur, and in the latter peninsula there are 
three of great height. 

From the similar nature of the coasts, and the identity of the 
fossil mammalia on each side of Behring's Strait, it is more than 
probable that the two continents were united, even since the sea 
was inhabited by the existing species of shell-fish. Some of the 
gigantic quadrupeds of the old continent are supposed to have 
crossed, either over the land or over the ice, to America ; and to 
have wandered southward through the longitudinal valleys of the 
Rocky Mountains, Mexico, and Central America, and to have 
spread over the vast plains of both continents, even to their 
utmost extremity.*^ An extinct species of horse, the mastodon, 
a species of elephant, three gigantic edentata, and a hollow- 

•5* Dr. Richardson on the Fauna of the High Latitudes of North 
America. 



132 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

horned ruminating animal roamed over the prairies of North 
America — certainly since the sea was peopled by its present 
inhabitants, probably even since the existence of the Indians. 
The skeletons of these creatures are found in great numbers in 
the saHne marshes on the prairies called the Licks, which are still 
the resort of the existing races.^^ 

There were, however, various animals peculiar to America, as 
well as to each part of that continent, at least as far as yet known. 
South America still retains in many cases the type of its ancient 
inhabitants, though on a very reduced scale. But on the Pata- 
gonian plains, and on the Pampas, skeletons of creatures of 
gigantic size and anomalous forms have been found, one like an 
anteater of great magnitude, covered with a prodigious coat of 
mail similar to that of the armadillo ; others like rats or mice, as 
large as the hippopotamus — all of which had lived on vegetables, 
and had existed at the same time with those already mentioned. 
These animals were not destroyed by the agency of man, since 
creatures not larger than a rat vanished from Brazil within the 
same period. 

The geological outline of the United States, the Canadas, and 
all the country of the Polar Ocean, though highly interesting in 
itself, becomes infinitely more so when viewed in connection with 
that of northern and middle Europe. A remarkable analogy exists 
in the structure of the land on each side of the North Atlantic 
basin. Gneiss, mica-schist, and occasional granite, prevail over 
wide ares in the Alleghanies, on the Atlantic Slope, and still more 
in the northern latitudes of the American continent ; and they 
range also through the greater part of Scandinavia, Finland, and 
Lapland. In the latter countries, and in the more northern parts 
of America, Sir Charles Lyeil has observed that the fossiliferous 
rocks belong either to the most ancient or to the newest formations,^^ 
to the SiluriarL strata, or to such as contain shells of recent species 
only, no intermediate formation appearing through immense re- 
gions. Silurian strata extend over 2000 miles in the middle and 
high latitudes of North America ; they occupy a tract nearly as 
great between the most westerly headlands of Norway and those 
that separate the White Sea from the Polar Ocean ; and Sir Rod- 
erick Murchison has traced them through central and eastern 
Europe, and the Ural Mountains, even to Siberia. Throughout 
these vast regions, both in America and Europe, the Silurian strata 
are followed in ascending order by the Devonian and carboniferous 
formations, which are developed on a stupendous scale in the 

63 Sir Charles Lyell. 

^'^ This remarkable analogy between the fossil remains of the Silurian 
systems in the Old and New World has been more particularly shown 
by the researches of Messrs, de Verneuil and Sharpe. 



MEAN HEIGHT OF CONTINENTS. 133 

United States, chiefly in the Alleghany mountains and on the 
Atlantic Slope. The Devonian and carboniferous strata together 
are a mile and a half thick in New York, and three times as much 
in Pennsylvania, where one single coal-field occupies 63,000 square 
miles between the northern limits of that state and Alabama. 
There are many others of great magnitude, both in the States and 
to the north of them, so that most valuable of all minerals is inex- 
haustible, which is not the least of the many advantages enjoyed 
by that flourishing country. The coal formation is also developed 
in New Brunswick, and traces of it are found on the shores and 
in the islands of the Polar Ocean, on the east coast of Greenland, 
and even in Spitzbergen. 

Vast carboniferous basins exist in Belgium, above the Silurian 
strata ; and a great portion of Britain is perfectly similar in struc- 
ture to North America. The Silurian rocks in many instances are 
the same, and the coal-fields of New England are precisely similar 
to those in Wales, 3000 miles ofl^. 

In all the more northern countries that have been mentioned, 
so very distant from one another, the general range of the rocks is 
from north-east to south-west ; and in northern Europe, the British 
isles, and North America, great lakes are formed along the junc- 
tion of the strata, the whole analogy affording a proof of the wide 
diffusion of the same geological conditions in the northern regions 
at a very remote period. At a later time those erratic blocks, 
which are now scattered over the higher latitudes of both continents, 
were, most likely, brought from the north by drift ice or currents, 
while the land was still covered by the deep. Volcanic agency 
has not been wanting to complete the analogy. The Silurian and 
overlying strata have been pierced in many places by trappean 
rocks on both continents, and they appear also in the islands of 
the North Atlantic and Polar Seas. Even now the volcanic fires 
are in great activity in the very centre of that basin in Iceland, 
and in the very distant and less-known island of Jan Meyen. 

The average height of the continents above the level of the sea 
is the mean between the height of all the high lands and all the 
low. Baron Humboldt, by whom the computation was effected, 
found that the table-lands, with their slopes, on account of their 
great extent and mass, have a much greater influence upon the 
result than mountain-chains. For example, if the range of the 
Pyrenees were pulverized, and strewed equally over the whole of 
Europe, it would only raise the soil 6 feet ; the Alps, which occupy 
an area four times as great as that on which the Pyrenees stand, 
would only raise it 22 feet; whereas the compact plateau of the 
Spanish peninsula, which has only 1920 feet of mean height, 
would elevate the soil of Europe 76 feet ; so that the table-land of 
12 



]L34 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

the Spanish peninsula would produce an effect four times as great 
as the whole system of the Alps. , i • -u 

A great extent of lowland necessarily compensates for the high 
^at least it diminishes its effect. The mean elevation of France, 
including the Pyrenees, Juras, Vosges, and all the other French 
mountains, is 870 feet, while the mean height of the whole Euro- 
pean continent, of 1,720,000 square miles, is only 670 feet, because 
the vast European plain, which is nine times as large as France, 
has a mean akitude of but 380 feet, dthough it has a few intumes- 
cences, which, however, are not much above 1000 feet high, so 
that it is 200 feet lower than the mean height of France.67 

The great table-land of Eastern Asia, with its colossal mountain- 
chains, has a much less effect on the mean height of Asia than 
might have been expected, on account of the depression round the 
Caspian Sea: and still more from the very low level and the enor- 
mous extent of Siberia, which is a third larger than all Europe. 
The intumescences in these vast plains are insignificant m com- 
parison with their vast area, for Tobolsk is only 115 feet above the 
level of the sea; and even on the Upper Angora, at a point nearer 
the Indian than the Arctic Sea, the elevation is only 830 feet, which 
is not half the height of the city of Munich, and the third part ot 
Asia has a mean height of only 255 feet. The effect of the Great 
Gobi, that part of the table-land lying between Lake Baikal and 
the wall of China, is diminished by a vast hollow 2560 feet deep, 
the dry basin of an ancient sea of considerable extent near Erge, 
so that this great desert has a mean height of but 4220 feet, and 
consequently it only raises the centre of gravity of the Asiatic con- 
tinent 128 feet, though it is twice as large as Germany. The table- 
land of Tibet, whose mean elevation, according to Baron Humboldt, 
is 11,600 feet, together with the chains of the Himalaya and Kuen- 
lun, which enclose it, only produces an effect of 358 feet. On the 
whole the mean level of Asia about the sea is 1150 feet.^^ ^ 

Notwithstanding the height and length of the Andes, their mass 
has little effect on the continent of South America on account of 

67 According to M. Charpentier, the area of the base of the Pyrenees 
is 1720 square EngUsh miles. As the mean elevation of the passes 
gives the mean height of the mountains, Baron Humboldt estimated trom 
the heio-ht of 23 passes over the Pyrenees that the mean crest ol that 
chain is 7990 feet high, which is 300 feet higher than the mean height 
of the Alps, though the peaks in the Alps have a greater elevation than 
those of the Pyrenees in the ratio Ifo to 1. r , -u u 

63 The Russian Academicians MM. Fuss and Bunge, found by baro- 
metrical measurement the mean height of that part of the Eastern Asiatic 
table-land lying between Lake Baikal and the Great Wall of China to 
be only about 6960 feet. The smallness of this mean is owing to hol- 
lows in the table-land, especially in the desert of the Great Gobi. 



MEAN DEPTH OF THE OCEAN. 135 

the extent of the eastern plains, which are exactly one-third larger 
than Europe. For if these mountains were reduced to powder, 
and strewn equally over them, it would not raise them above 518 
feet ; but when the minor mountain systems and the table-land of 
Brazil are added to the Andes, the mean height of the whole of 
South America is 1130 feet. North America, whose mountain- 
chains are far inferior to those in the southern part of the conti- 
nent, has its mean elevation increased by the table-land of Mexico, 
so that it has 750 feet of mean height. 

The mean elevation of the whole of the New World is 930 feet, 
and the height of the centre of gravity of all the continental masses 
above the level of the sea, Africa excepted, is 1010 feet. Thus, 
it appears that the internal action in ancient times has been most 
powerful under Asia, somewhat less under South America, consi- 
derably less under North America, and least of all under Europe. 
In the course of ages changes will take place in these results, on 
account both of the sudden and gradual rise of the land in some 
parts of the earth, and its depression in others. The continental 
masses of the north are the lowest portions of our hemisphere, since 
the mean heights of Europe and North America are 670 and 750 
feet. 69 

So little is known of the bed of the ocean that no inference can 
be drawn with regard to its heights and hollows, and what rela- 
tion its mean depth bears to the mean height of the land. From 
its small influence on the gravitating force, La Place assumed it 
to be about four miles. As the mean height of the continents is 
about 1000 feet, and their extent only about a fourth of that of the 
sea, they might be easily submerged, were it not that, in conse- 
quence of the sea being only one-fifth of the mean density of the 
earth, and the earth itself increasing in density towards its centre. 
La Place has proved that the stability of the equilibrium of the 

^ By the mensuration and computation of Baron Humboldt and Mr. 
Pentland, the elevation of the highest peaks, and the mean heights of 
the Himalaya, of the equatorial and Bolivian Andes and the Alps, are 
as follows : — 

Peaks. Mean Height* 

Himalaj^a 25,700 . . 15,670 

Andes between 5° N. and 2° S. lat. . 21,420 . . 11,380 

Eastern Cordillera ) Between iso ( 21,200 . . 15,250 

Western Cordillera j and J5o s. lat. j 22,300 . , 14.900 

Alps 15,666 . . 7,353 

However, the Peak of Dhawalaghini is certainly 28,000 feet high. Cap- 
tain Gerard gives 18,000 or 19,000 feet as the height of the snow-line on 
the mountains in the middle of the Asiatic table-land, and 30,000 feet as 
the absolute elevation of the Kuen-lan, but Colonel Sabine observes that 
these measures want confirmation. 



136 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

ocean can never be subverted by any physical cause: a general 
inundation from the mere instability of the ocean is therefore 
impossible. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



The Continent of Australia — Tasmania, or Van Diemen's Land — Islands 
— Continental Islands — Pelasgic Islands — New Zealand — New Guinea 
— Borneo — Atolls — Encircling Reefs — Coral Reefs — Barrier Reefs — 
Volcanic Islands — Areas of Subsidence and Elevation in the Bed of 
the Pacific — Active Volcanos — Earthquakes — Secular Changes in the 
Level of the Land. 

The continent of New Holland, situate in the Eastern Pacific 
Ocean, is so destitute of large navigable rivers that probably no 
very high land exists in its interior, which, as far as it has been 
explored, seems to be singularly fiat and low, but it is still so little 
known that no idea can be formad of its mean elevation. It is 
2400 miles from east to west, and 1700 from north to south, and 
is divided into two unequal parts by the Tropic of Capricon ; con- 
sequently it has both a temperate and a tropical climate. New 
Guinea, separated frem New Holland by Torres Straits, and tra- 
versed by the same chain of mountains with New Holland and 
Van Diemen's Land, is so perfectly similar in structure, that it 
forms but a detached member of the adjacent continent. 

The coasts of New Holland are indented by very large bays, 
and by harbours that might give shelter to all the navies in Europe. 
The most distinguishing feature of the eastern side, which is 
chiefly occupied by the British colony of New South Wales, is a 
long chain of mountains which never retires far from the coast, 
and, with the exception of some short deviations in its southern 
part, maintains a meridional directing through 35 degrees of lati- 
tude. It is continued at one extremity from Torres Straits, at the 
north of the Gulf of Carpentaria, far into the interior of New 
Guinea; and at the other it traverses the whole of Van Diemen's 
Land. It is low in the northern parts of New Holland, being in 
some places merely a high land ; but about the 30th degree of 
south latitude it assumes the form of a regular mountain-chain, 
and, running in a very tortuous line from N.E. to S.W., termi- 
nates its visible course at Wilson's Promontory, the southern ex- 
tremity of the continent. It is continued, however, by a chain of 
mountainous islands across Bass's Straits to Cape Portland, in Van 



AUSTRALIAN MOUNTAINS. 137 

Diemen's Land ; from thence the range proceeds in a zigzag line 
of high and picturesque mountains to South Cape, where it ends, 
having, in its course of 1500 miles, separated the drainage of both 
countries into eastern and western waters. 

The distance of the chain from the sea in New South Wales is 
from 50 to 100 miles, but at the 32d parallel it recedes to 150, 
yet soon returns, and forms the wild group of the Corecudgy 
Peaks, from whence, under the names of the Blue Mountains 
and AustraHan Alps, its highest part, it proceeds in a general 
westerly direction to the land's end. 

The average height of these mountains is only from 2400 to 
4700 feet above the level of the sea, and even Mount Kosciusko, 
the loftiest of the AustraHan Alps, is not more than 6500 feet 
high ; yet its position is so favourable, that the view from its 
snowy and craggy top sweeps over an area of 7000 square miles. 
The rugged and savage character of these mountains far exceeds 
what might be expected from their height : in some places, it is 
true, their tops are rounded and covered with forests ; but by far 
the greater part of the chain, though wooded along the flanks, is 
crowned by naked needles, tooth-formed peaks, and flat crests of 
granite or porphyry, mingled with patches of snow. The spurs 
give a terrific character to these mountains, and in many places 
render them altogether inaccessible, both in New South Wales 
and Van Diemen's Land. These shoot right and left from the 
ridgy axis of the main range, equal to it in height, and separated 
from it, and from one another, by dark and almost subterraneous 
gullies, like rents in the bosom of the earth, iron-bound by im- 
practicable precipices, and streams flowing through them in black 
silent eddies or foaming torrents. The intricate character of these 
ravines, the danger of descending into them, and the difficulty of 
getting out again, render this mountain-chain, in New South 
Wales at least, almost a complete barrier between the country on 
the coast and that in the interior— a circumstance very unfavour- 
able to the latter.7o 

In New South Wales the country slopes westward from these 
mountains to a low, flat, unbroken plain. On the east side, darkly 
verdant and round-topped hills and ridges are promiscuously 
grouped together, leading to a richly-wooded undulating country, 
which gradually descends to the coast, and forms the valuable 
lands of the British colony. Discovered by Cook in the year 
1770, it was not colonized till 1788. It has become a prosperous 
country ; and although new settlers in the more remote parts 
suffer the privations and difficulties incident to their position, yet 

'9 Memoirs of Count Strzelecki. 
12» 



138 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

there is educated society in the towns, with the comforts and 
luxuries of civilized life. 

The coast-belt on the western side of New Holland is generally 
of inferior land, with richer tracts interspersed near the rivers, 
and bounded on the east by a range of primary mountains from 
3000 to 4000 feet high, in which granite occasionally appears. 
Beyond this the country is level, and the land better, though 
nowhere very productive except in grass. 

None of the rivers of New Holland are navigable to any great 
distance from their mouths. The want of water is severely felt 
in the interior, which, as far as it is known, is a treeless desert of 
sand, swamps, and jungle ; yet a belief prevails that there is a 
large sea or fresh-water lake in its centre ; and this opinion is 
founded partly on the nature of the soil, and also because all the 
rivers that flow into the sea on the northern coast, between the 
Gulfs of Van Diemen and Carpentaria, converge towards their 
sources, as if they served for drains to some large body of water. 

However unpropitious the centre of the continent maybe — and 
the shores generally have the same barren character — there is 
abundance of fine country inland from the coast. On the north 
all tropical productions might be raised, and in so large a conti- 
nent there must be extensive tracts of arable land, though its 
pecuHar character is pastoral. There are large forests on the 
mountains and elsewhere, yet that moisture is wanting which 
clothes other countries in the same latitudes with rank vegetation. 
In the colonies, the clearing of a great extent of land has modified 
in some degree the mean annual temperature, so that the cHmate 
has become hotter and drier, and not thereby improved. 

Van Diemen's Land, of triangular form, has an area of 27,200 
square miles, and is very mountainous. No country has a greater 
number of deep, commodious harbours ; and as most of the rivers, 
though not navigable to any distance, end in arms of the sea, they 
afford secure anchorage for ships of any size. The mountain- 
chain that traverses the colony of New South Wales and the 
islands in Bass's Straits, rises again from Cape Portland, and, 
winding through Van Diemen's Land in the form of the letter Z, 
separates it into two nearly equal parts, with a mean height of 
3750 feet, and at an average distance of 40 miles from the sea. 
It encloses the basins of Derwent and Heron rivers, and, after 
sending a branch between them to Hobart Town, ends at South 
Cape. The ofTsets which shoot in all directions are as savage 
and full of impassable chasms as it is itself. There are cultivable 
plains and valleys along the numerous rivers -and large lakes by 
which the country is well watered ; so that Van Diemen's Land is 
more agricultural and fertile than the adjacent continent, but its 
cHmate is wet and cold. The uncleared soil of both countries, 



CLASSIFICATION OF ISLANDS. 139 

however, is far inferior to that in the greater part of North or 
South America.''^ 

Granite constitutes the entire floor of the western portion of 
New South Wales, and extends far into the interior of the conti- 
nent, bearing a striking resemblance in character to a similar 
portion of the Altai chain described by Baron Humboldt. The 
central axis of the mountain-range, in New South Wales and in 
Van Diemen's Land, is of granite, syenite, and quartz rock; but 
in early times there had been great invasions of volcanic sub- 
stances, as many parts of the main chain, and most of its offsets, 
are of the older igneous rocks. The fossiliferous strata of the 
two colonies are mostly of the Palaeozoic period, but their fossil 
fauna is poor in species. Some are identical with, and others are 
representatives of, the species of other countries, even of England. 
It appears from their coal-measures that the flora of these countries 
was as distinct in appearance from that of the northern hemisphere, 
previous to the carboniferous period, as it is at the present day. 

Though the innumerable islands that are scattered through the 
ocean and seas differ much in size, form, and character, they have 
been grouped by M. Von Buch into the two distinct classes of 
Continental and Pelasgic islands, most of the latter being either 
of volcanic or coral formation. Continental islands are long in 
proportion to their breadth, and follow each other in succession 
along the margin of the continents, as if they had been formed 
during the elevation of the mainland, or had subsequently been 
separated from it by the action of the sea, and still mark its 
ancient boundar}''. These islands, which follow one another in 
their elongated dimensions, generally run parallel to the maritime 
chains of mountains, and are mostly of the same structure, so that 
they suggest the idea of a submarine portion of the maritime 
range that has not yet completely emerged from the deep — or, if 
sinking, has not yet disappeared below the waves. 

America offers numerous examples of this kind of island. On 
the north-western coast there is a long chain of them, beginning 
with the New Norfolk group, and ending with Vancouver's Island, 
all similar and parallel to the maritime chain. Another range of 
Continental islands occurs at the southern extremity of America, 
extending from Chiloe to Cape Horn, evidently an exterior range 
of the Patagonian Andes, and the southern prolongation of the 
granitic or coast chain of Chile ; in the Gulf of Mexico, the ancient 
margin of the mainland is marked by the curved group of Porto 
Rico, San Domingo, Jamaica, and Cuba, which nearly joins the 
peninsula of Yucatan. The various islands along the American 
coast of the Polar Ocean are the shattered fragments of the conti- 
nent. 

"'^ Count Strzelecki. 



140 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

The old continent also affords innumerable examples ; along the 
the whole coast of Norway, from North Cape southwards, there 
is a continuous chain of rocky islands similar and parallel to 
the great range of the Scandinavian Alps ; Great Britain itself, 
with the Hebrides, Orkney, and Zetland islands, are remarkable 
instances of Continental islands. It would be superfluous to 
mention the various instances which occur in the Mediterranean, 
where many of the islands are merely the prolongations of the 
mountain-chains of the mainland rising above the sea, as Corsica 
and Sardinia, which are a continuation of the Maritime Alps. 

The great central chain of Madagascar and its elongated form, 
parallel to the Lupata Mountains, show that the island once formed 
part of the African continent. Asia, also, abounds in instances, 
as Sumatra, Java, and the Moluccas, and another vast chain 
extends along the western coast of Asia from Formosa to Kamt- 
chatka. 

Pelasgic islands have risen from the bed of the ocean, inde- 
pendently of the continents, and generally far from land. They 
are mostly volcanic, altogether or in part; often very lofty; some- 
times single, and frequently in groups, and each group has, or 
formerly has had, a centre of volcanic action in one or more of 
the islands, round which the others have been formed. Many 
have craters of elevation, that is to say, they have been raised up 
in great hollow domes by the internal elastic vapours, and have 
either remained so, have become rent at the surface into gigantic 
fissures, or have collapsed into hollow cups, in which craters have 
formed, by the eruption of loose incoherent matter, or of lava 
currents, when the pressure from below was removed :^^ a con- 
siderable number have active vents. 

The small islands and groups scattered at enormous distances 
from one another, within the Antartic Circle, are all of volcanic 
formation, though none are active. In the Atlantic, Tristan da 
Cunha, St. Helena, Ascension, and Madeira are volcanic, though 
not now actively so ; whereas the Cape de Verde, Canaries, and 
Azores have each volcanic vents : the peak of Teyda, in Teneriffe, 
is one of the most magnificent volcanic cones in the world. 

The labyrinth of islands scattered over the Pacific Ocean for 
more than 30 degrees on each side of the equator, and from the 
130th eastern meridian to Sumatra, which all but unites this 
enormous archipelago to the continent of Asia, has the group of 
New Zealand or Tasmania, and the continent of Australia, with 
its appendage, Van Diemen's Land, on the south, and altogether 
forms a region which, from, the unstable nature of the surface of 
the earth, is partly the wreck of a continent that has been en- 

72 M. Von Buch 



NEW ZEALAND. 141 

gulfed by the ocean, and partly the summits of a new one rising 
above the waves. This extensive portion of the globe is in many 
parts terra incognita; the Indian Archipelago has been little 
explored, and, with the exception of our colonies in New Holland 
and New Zealand, is httle known. 

M. Von Buch conceives that the enormous circuit, beginning 
with New Zealand and extending through Norfolk Island, New 
Caledonia, New Hebrides, Solomon's Island, New Britain, New 
Hanover, New Ireland, Louisiade, and New Guinea, once formed 
the western and northern boundary of the Australian continent. 

New Zealand, divided into three islands by rocky and danger- 
ous channels, is superior to Australia in richness of soil, fertility, 
and beauty ; it abounds in a variety of vegetable and mineral 
productions. High mountains, of volcanic origin, run through the 
islands, which, in the most northerly, rise 14,000 feet above the 
stormy ocean around, buried two-thirds of their height in perma- 
nent snow and glaciers, exhibiting on the grandest scale all the 
alpine characters, with the addition of active volcanos on the 
eastern and western coasts : that of Tangarara pours forth deluges 
of boihng water, which deposit vast quantities of siliceous sinter 
like the Geysers in Iceland ; and such is the vitality of the vege- 
tation, that plants grow richly on the banks, and even in water too 
hot to be endured.'^ The coast is a frozen country, overspread 
with a most luxuriant but dark and gloomy vegetation. There 
are undulating tracts and table-lands of great extent without a 
tree, over-run by ferns and a low kind of myrtle ; but the moun- 
tain-ridges are clothed with dense and gigantic forests. There is 
much good land and many lakes, with navigable rivers, the best 
of harbours, and a mild climate ; so that no country is better 
suited for a prosperous and flourishing colony. It may be con- 
sidered, even at this early period of its colonial existence, as the 
Great Britain of the southern hemisphere. 

A very different scene from the stormy seas of New Zealand 
presents itself to the north of Australia. There, vivified by the 
glowing sun of the equator, the islands of the Indian Archipelago 
are of matchless beauty, crowned by lofty mountains, loaded with 
aromatic verdure, that shelve to the shore, or dip into a transpa- 
rent glassy sea. Their coasts are cut by deep inlets, and watered 
by the purest streams, which descend in cascades rushing through 
wild crevices. The Avhole is so densely covered with palms and 
other beautiful forms of tropical vegetation that they seem to 
realize a terrestrial paradise. 

Papua or New Guinea, the largest island in the Pacific after 
New Holland, is 1100 miles long and 400 in width, with moun- 

'3 — Mansel, Esq. 



142 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

tains rising above mountains, till in the west they attain the 
height of 16,000 feet, capped with snow, and two volcanos burn 
on its nothern shores. From its position so near the equator it is 
probable that New Guinea has the same vegetation with the Spice 
Islands to the east, and, from the little that is known of it, must 
be one of the finest countries in existence. 

Borneo, next in size to New Guinea, is a noble island, divided 
into two nearly equal parts by the equator, and traversed through 
its whole length by magnificent chains of mountains, which end 
in three branches at the Java Sea. Beautiful rivers flow from 
them to the plains, and several of these spring from a spacious 
lake on the table-land in the interior, among the peaks of Keni- 
Baju, the highest point of the island. Diamonds, gold, and anti- 
mony are among its minerals ; gums, gutta percha, precious 
woods, and all kinds of spices and tropical fruits are among its 
vegetable productions. 

Situate in the centre of a vast archipelago, and in the direct 
line of an extensive and valuable commerce, it will in the course 
of time become the seat of a great nation, whose civilization and 
prosperity will hand down to posterity the name of the enterpris- 
ing, philanthropic Sir James Brooke, Rajah of Sarawak, with the 
highest honour to which man can aspire. The climate is healthy, 
tempered by sea-breezes, and in some parts even European ; and 
its appendage, the small island of Labuan,rich in coal, is happily 
situate in the route of steam-vessels between India and China. 

A volume might be written on the beauty and riches of the 
Indian Archipelago. Many of the islands are hardly known ; 
the interior of the greater number has never been explored, so 
that they offer a wide field of discovery to the enterprising trav- 
eller, and they are now of easier access since the seas have been 
cleared of pirates by the exertions of the Honourable Captain 
Keppel, arid other officers of Her Majesty's Navy. 

They have become of much importance since our relations 
with China have been extended, on which account surveys of 
their coasts have been already made, and are going on, under the 
able direction of the Hydrographer of the Navy, Sir F. Beaufort. 
The great intertropical islands of the Pacific, likewise other large 
islands, as Ceylon and Madagascar, in the Indian Seas, which by 
the way do not differ in character from the preceding, are really 
continents in miniature, with their mountains and plains, their 
lakes and rivers ; and in climate they vary, like the main land, 
with the latitude, only that continental climates are more extreme 
both as to heat and cold. 

It is a singular circumstance, arising from the instability of the 
crust of the earth, that all the smaller tropical pelasgic islands in 
the Pacific and Indian Oceans are either volcanic or coralline, 



ATOLLS. 143 

except New Caledonia and the Seychelles ; and it is a startling 
fact, that in most cases where there are volcanos the land is rising 
by slow and almost imperceptible degrees above the ocean, whereas 
there is every reason to believe that those vast spaces, studded 
with coral islands or atolls, are actually sinking below it, and 
have been for ages."* 

'I'here are four different kinds of coral formations in the Pacific 
and Indian Oceans, all entirely produced by the growth of organic 
beings, and their detritus, namely, lagoon islands or atolls, encir- 
cling reefs, barrier reefs, and coral fringes. They are all nearly 
confined to the tropical regions ; the atolls to the Pacific and 
Indian Oceans alone. 

An atoll or Jagoon island consists of a chaplet or ring of coral, 
enclosing a lagoon or portion of the ocean in its centre. The 
average breadth of the part of the ring above the surface of the 
sea is about a quarter of a mile, oftener less, and it seldem rises 
higher than from 6 to 10 or 12 feet above the waves. Hence, the 
lagoon islands are not discernible, even at a very small distance, 
unless when they are covered with the cocoa-nut, palm, or the 
pandanus, which is frequently the case. On the outer side this 
ring or circlet shelves down to the distance of 100 or 200 yards 
from its edge, so that the sea gradually deepens to 25 fathoms, 
beyond which the sides plunge at once into the unfathomable 
depths of the ocean, with a more rapid descent than the cone of 
any volcano. Even at the small distance of some hundred yards, 
no bottom has been found with a sounding-line a mile and a half 
long. All the coral at a moderate depth below water is alive — 
all above is dead, being the detritus of the living part, washed 
up by the surf, which is so tremendous on the windward side 
of the tropical islands of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, that it is 
often heard miles off', and is frequently the first warning to sea- 
men of their approach to an atoll. 

On the lagoon side, where the water is calm, the bounding ring 
or reef shelves into it by a succession of ledges, also of living 
coral, though not of the same species with those which build the 
exterior wall and the foundations of the whole ring. The per- 
petual change of water brought into contact with the external 
coral by the breakers probably supplies them with more food than 
they could obtain in a quieter sea, which may account for their 
more luxuriant growth. At the same time, they deprive the 
whole of the coral in the interior of the most nourishing part of 
their food, because the still water in the lagoon, being supplied 
from the exterior by openings in the ring, ceases to produce the 
hardier corals ; and species of more delicate forms, and of much 

■^^ Mr. Darwin on Coral Reefs. 



144 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

slower growth, take their place.''^ The depth of the lagoon 
varies, in different atolls, from 20 to 50 fathoms, the bottom being 
partly detritus and partly live coral. By the growth of the coral, 
some few of the lagoons have been filled up ; but the process is 
very slow from the causes assigned, and also because there are 
marine animals that feed on the living coral, and prevent its 
indefinite growth. In all departments of nature, the exuberant 
increase of any one class is checked and limited by others. The 
coral is of the most varied and delicate structure, and of the most 
beautiful tints : dark'brown, vivid green, rich purple, pink, deep 
blue, peach-colour, yellow, with dazzling white, contrasted with 
deep shadows, shine through the limpid water ; while fish of the 
most gorgeous hues swim among the branching coral, which are 
of many different kinds, though all combine in the structure of 
these singular islands. Lagoon islands are sometimes circular, 
but more frequently oval or irregular in their form. Sometimes 
they are solitary or in groups, but they occur most frequently in 
elongated archipelagos, with the atolls elongated in the same 
direction. The grouping of atolls bear a perfect analogy to the 
grouping of the archipelagos of ordinary islands. 

The size of these fairy rings of the ocean varies from 2 to 90 
miles in diameter, and islets are frequently formed on the coral rings 
by the washing up of the detritus, for they are so low that the waves 
break over them in high tides or storms. They have openings or 
channels in their circuit, generally on the leeward side, where the 
tide enters, and bj'^ these ships may sail into the lagoons, which are 
excellent harbours, and even on the surface of the circlet or reef 
itself there are occasionally boat-channels between the islets. 

Dangerous Archipelago, lying east of the Society Islands, is 
one of the most remarkable assemblages of atolls in the Pacific 
Ocean. There are 80 of them, generally in a circular form, sur- 
rounding very deep lagoons, and separated from each other by 
profound depths. The reefs or rings are about half a mile wide, 
and seldom rise more than 10 feet above the edge of the surf, 
which beats upon them with such violence that it may be heard 
at the distance of 8 miles ; and j^et on that side the coral insects 
build more vigorously, and vegetation thrives better, than on the 
other. Many of the islets are inhabited. 

The Caroline Archipelago, the largest of all, lies north of the 
equator, and extends its atolls in 60 groups over 1000 miles. 
Many are of great size, and all are beat by a tempestuous sea and 
occasional hurricanes. The atolls in the Pacific Ocean and China 
Sea are beyond enumeration. Though less frequent in the 

■^5 Supplement to the Observations on the Temple of Serapis, by 
Charles Babbage, Esq. 



ENCIRCLING AND BARRIER REEFS. 145 

Indian Ocean, none are more interesting, or afford more perfect 
specimens of this peculiar formation, than the Maldive and Lacca- 
dive archipelagos, both nearly parallel to the coast of Malabar, 
and elongated in that direction. The former is 470 miles long 
and about 50 miles broad, with atolls arranged in a double row, 
separated by an unfathomable sea, into which their sides descend 
with more than ordinary rapidity. The largest atoll is 88 miles 
long and somewhat less than 20 broad ; Suadiva, the next in size, is 
44 miles by 23, with a large lagoon in its centre, to which there 
is access by 42 openings. There are inhabited islets on most of 
the chaplets or rings not higher than 20 feet, while the reefs 
themselves are nowhere more than 6 feet above the surge. 

The Laccadives run to the north of this archipelago in a double 
line of nearly circular atolls, on which are low inhabited islets- 

Encircling reefs differ in no respect from atoll-reefs, except that 
they have one or more islands in their lagoon. They commonly 
form a ring round mountainous islands, at a distance of two or 
three miles from the shore, rising on the outside from a very deep 
ocean, and separated from the land by a lagoon or channel 200 or 
300 feet deep. These reefs surround the submarine base of the 
island, and, rising by a steep ascent to the surface, they encircle 
the island itself. The Caroline Archipelago exhibits good exam- 
ples of this structure in the encircled islands of Hogoleu and Sini- 
avin ; the narrow ring or encircling reef of the former is 135 miles 
in its very irregular circuit, on which area vast number of islets: 
six or eight islands rise to a considerable height from its lagoon, 
which is so deep, and the opening to it so large, that a frigate 
might sail into it. The encircling reef of Siniavin is narrow and 
irregular, and its lagoon is so nearly filled by a lofty island, that 
it leaves only a strip of water round it from 2 to 5 miles wide and 
30 fathoms deep. 

Otaheite [Tahiti], the largest of the Society group, is another 
instance of an encircled island of the most beautiful kind ; it 
rises in mountains 7000 feet high, with only a narrow plain 
along the shore, and, except where cleared for cultivation, it is 
covered with forests of cocoa-nut, palms, bananas, bread-fruit, and 
other productions of a tropical climate. The lagoon, which 
encompasses it like an enormous moat, is 30 fathoms deep, and 
is hemmed in from the ocean by a coral band of the usual kind, 
at a distance varying from half a mile to three miles. 

Barrier-reefs are of precisely the same structure as the two 
preceding classes, from which they only differ in their position 
with regard to the land. A barrier reef off the north-east coast 
of the continent of Australia is the grandest coral formation 
existing. Rising at once from an unfathomable ocean, it extends 
1000 miles along the coast, with a breadth varying from 200 
13 



146 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

yards to a mile, and at an average distance of from 20 to 30 miles 
from the shore, increasing in some places to 60 and even 70 
miles. The great arm of the sea included between it and the 
land is novi^here less than 10, occasionally 60 fathoms deep, and 
is safely navigable throughout its whole length, with a few 
transverse openings by which ships can enter. The reef is 
really 1200 miles long, because it stretches nearly across Torres 
Straits. It is interrupted off the southern coast of New Guinea 
by muddy water, which destroys the coral animals, probably 
from some great river on that island. There are also extensive 
barrier-reefs on the islands of Louisiade and New Caledonia, 
which are exactly opposite to the great Australian reef; and as 
atolls stud that part of the Pacific which lies between them, it is 
called the Coralline Sea. The rolling of the billows along the 
great Australian reef has been admirably described. " The long 
ocean-swell, being suddenly impeded by this barrier, lifted itself 
in one great continuous ridge of deep blue water, which, curling 
over, fell on the edge of the reef in an unbroken cataract of dazz- 
ling white foam. Each line of breaker ran often one or two 
miles in length with not a perceptible gap in its continuity. 
There was a simple grandeur and display of power and beauty 
in this scene that rose even to sublimity. The unbroken roar of 
the surf, with its regular pulsation of thunder, as each succeeding 
swell fell first on the outer edge of the reef, was almost deafening, 
yet so deep-toned as not to interfere with the shghtest nearer and 

sharper sound Both the sound and sight were such as 

to impress the spectator with the consciousness of standing in the 
presence of an overwhelming majesty and power. "'^^ 

Coral-reefs are distinct from all the foregoing ; they are merely 
fringes of coral along the margin of a shore, and, as they line the 
shore itself, they have no lagoons. A vast extent of coast, both 
on the continents and islands, is fringed by these reefs, and, as 
they frequently surround these shoals, they are very dangerous. 

Lagoon islands are the work of various species of coral animals ; 
but those particular polypi which build the external wall, the founda- 
tion and support of the whole ring or reef, are most vigorous when 
most exposed to the breakers ; they cannot exist at a greater depth 
than 25 or 30 fathoms at most, and die immediately when left 
dry : yet the coral wall descends precipitously to unfathomable 
depths ; and although the whole of it is not the work of these 
animals, yet the perpendicular thickness of the coral is known to 
be very great, extending hundreds of feet below the depth at 
which these polypi cease to live. From an. extensive survey of 

■^ By Mr. Jukes, Naturalist to the Surveying Voyage of Captain 
Blackwood; R. N., in Torres Straits. 



LAGOON ISLANDS. 147 

the Coralline Seas of the tropics, Mr. Darwin has found an ex- 
planation of these singular phenomena in the instability of the 
the crust of the earth. 

Since there are certain proofs that large areas of the dry land 
are gradually rising, and others sinking down, so the bottom of 
the ocean is not exempt from the general change that is slowly 
bringing about a new state of things ; and as there is evidence, 
on multitudes of the volcanic islands in the Pacific, of a rise in 
certain parts of the basis of the ocean, so the lagoon islands indi- 
cate a subsidence in others — changes arising from the expansion 
and contraction of the strata under the bed of the ocean. 

There are strong reasons for believing that a continent once 
occupied a great part of the tropical Pacific, some part of which 
subsided by sIoav and imperceptible degrees. As portions of it 
gradually sank down below the surface of the deep, the tops of 
mountains and table-lands would remain as islands of different 
magnitude and elevation, and would form archipelagos elongated 
in the direction of the mountain-chains. Now, the coral-animal, 
which constructs the outward Wall and mass of the reefs, never 
builds laterally, and cannot exist at a greater depth than 23 or 30 
fathoms. Hence, if it began to lay the foundation of its reef on 
the submerged flanks of an island, it would be obliged to build its 
wall upwards in proportion as the island sank down, so that at 
length a Jagoon would be formed between it and the land. As the 
subsidence continued, the lagoon would increase, the island would 
diminish, and the base of the coral-reef would sink deeper and 
deeper, while the animal would always keep its top just below the 
surface Of the ocean, till at length the island would entirely disap- 
pear, and a perfect atoll would be left. If the island were moun- 
tainous, each peak would form a separate island in the lagoon, and 
the encircled islands would have different forms, which the reefs 
would follow continuously. This theory perfectly explains the 
appearances of the lagoon islands and barrier-reefs, the continuity 
of the reef, the islands in the middle of the lagoons, the different 
distances of the reefs from them, and the forms of the archipelago, 
so exactly similar to the archipelagos of ordinary islands, all of 
which are but the tops of submerged mountain-chains, and gener- 
ally partake of their elongated forms.'''' 

'■^ Another theory relative to the formation of the lagoon islands is, 
that the coral circuit is but the edge of a submarine elevation crater, on 
which the coral animals have raised their edifice. This view, which 
has been adopted by Von Buch and Captain Beechy, to whom we are 
indebted more than to any other navigator for positive information and 
admirable surveys of the coral islands of the Pacific, receives corrobo- 
ration from the perfect conformity in shape between many of the lagoon 
islands of the Gambier group and the known elevation craters, and 
1 rom the circumstance of a la£?oon island having been seen to rise in 



148 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

Every intermediate form between an atoll and an encircling 
reef exists : New Caledonia is a link between them. A reef runs 
along the north-western coast of that island 400 miles, and for 
many leagues never approaches within 8 miles of its shore, and 
the distance increases to 16 miles near the southern extremity. 
At the other end the reefs are continued on each side 150 miles 
beyond the sub-marine prolongation of the land, marking the 
former extent of the island. In the lagoon of Keeling Atoll, 
situate in the Indian Ocean, 600 miles south of Sumatra, many 
fallen trees and a ruined store-house show that it has subsided : 
these movements take place during the earthquakes at Sumatra, 
which are also felt in this atoll. Violent earthquakes have lately 
been felt at Vanikora (celebrated for the wreck of La Perouse), a 
lofty island of the Queen Charlotte group, with an encircling 
reef in the western part of the South Pacific, and on which there 
are marks of recent subsidence. Other proofs are not wanting 
of this great movement in the beds of the Pacific and Indian 
Oceans.- 

The extent of the atoll formations, including under this name 
the encircling reefs, is enormous. In the Pacific, from the 
southern end of Low Archipelago to the northern extremity of 
Marshall or Radick Archipelago, a distance of 4500 miles, and many 
degrees of latitude in breadth, atolls alone rise above the ocean. 
The same may be said of the space in the Indian Ocean between 
Saya de Matha and the end of the Laccadives, which includes 25 
degrees of latitude — such are the enormous areas that have been, 
and probably still are, slowty subsiding. Other spaces of great 
extent may also be mentioned, as the large archipelago of the 
Carolinas, that in the Coralline Sea of the north-west coast of 
Australia, and an extensive one in the China Sea. 

Though the volcanic islands in the Pacific are so numerous, 
there is not one within the areas mentioned, and there is not an 
active volcano within several hundred miles of an archipelago, or 
even group of atolls. This is the more interesting, as recent shells 
and fringes of dead coral, found at various heights on their sur- 
faces, show that the volcanic islands have been rising more and 
more above the surface of the ocean for a very long time. 

The volcanic islands also occupy particular zones in the Pacific, 
and it is found from extensive observation that all the points of 
eruption fall on the areas of elevation.^s 

1825, in lat. 30° 14', accompanied with smoke, and communicating so 
high a temperature to the surrounding sea as rendered it impossible to 
land. — See Beechy's Voyages, and Pceppig's l\eise. 

"^^ Few books have more interest than Mr. Darwin's on Coral Eeefs 
and Volcanic Islands, to which the author is much indebted. Consult 
also Captain Beechy's Voyages, and his beautiful charts of the Coral 
Islands in the Pacific. 



VOLCANIC ISLANDS. 149 

One of the most terribly active of these zones begins with the 
Banda group of islands, and extends through the Sunda group of 
Timor, Sumbawa, Bali, Java, and Sumatra, separated only by 
narrow channels, and altogether forming a gently curved hne 
2000 miles long ; but as the volcanic zone is continued through 
Barren Island and Narcondam in the Bay of Bengal, northward 
through the islands along the coast of Aracan, the entire length 
of this volcanic range is a great deal more. During the last 
hundred years all the islands and rocks for 100 miles along the 
coast of Aracan have been gradually rising. The greatest eleva- 
tion of 22 feet has taken place about the centre of the line of 
upheaval, in the north-west end of the island of Cheduba, con- 
taining two mud volcanos, and is continued through Foul Island 
and the Terribles.^^ 

The little island of Gonung-A pi, belonging to the Banda group, 
contains a volcano of great activity ; and such is the elevating 
pressure of the submarine fire in that part of the ocean, that a 
mass of black basalt rose up, of such magnitude as to fill a bay 
60 fathoms deep, so quietly that the inhabitants were not aware 
of what was going on till it Avas nearly done. Timor and the 
other adjacent islands also bear marks of recent elevation. 

There is not a spot of its size on the face of the earth that con- 
tains so many volcanos as the island of Java.^" A range of vol- 
canic mountains, from 5000 to 18,000 feet high, forms the cen- 
tral crest of the island, and ends to the east in a series of 38 
separate volcanos with broad bases, rising gradually into cones. 
They all stand on a plain but little elevated above the sea, and 
each individual mountain seems to have been formed independently 
of the rest. Most of them are of great antiquity, and are covered 
with thick vegetation. Some are extinct, or only emit smoke ; 
from others sulphureous vapours issue with prodigious violence ; 
one has a large crater filled with boiling water ; and a few have 
had fierce eruptions of late years. The island is covered with 
volcanic spurs from the main ridge, united by cross chains, 
together with other chains of less magnitude, but no less fury. 

In 1772 the greater part of one of the largest volcanic mountains 
was swallowed up after a short but severe combustion ; a luminous 
cloud enveloped the mountain on the 11th of August, and soon 
after the huge mass actually disappeared under the earth with 
tremendous noise, carrying with it about 90 square miles of the 
surrounding country, 40 villages, and 2957 of their inhabitants. 

The northern coast of Java is flat and swampy, but the southern 
provinces are beautiful and romantic ; yet in the lovely peaceful 

"^ By the Nautical Survey in 1848. 
^ Sir Stamford Raffles on Java. 
13* 



150 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

valleys the stillness of night is disturbed by the deep roaring of 
the volcanos, many of which are perpetually burning with slow 
but terrific action. 

Separated by narrow channels of the sea, Bali and Sumbawa 
are but a continuation of Java, the same in nature and structure, 
but on a smaller scale, their mountains being little more than 8000 
feet high. 

The intensity of the volcanic force under this part of the Pacific 
may be imagined from the eruption of Tomboro in Sumbawa in 
1815, which continued from the 5th of April till July. The 
explosions were heard at the distance of 970 miles; and in Java, 
at the distance of 300 miles, the darkness during the day was like 
that of deep midnight, from the quantity of ashes that filled the 
air: they were carried to Bencoolen, a distance of 1100 miles, 
which, with regard to distance, is as if the ashes of Vesuvius had 
fallen at Birmingham. The country round was ruined, and the 
town of Tomboro was submerged by heavy rollers from the ocean. 

In Sumatra the extensive granitic formations of Eastern Asia 
join the volcanic series which occupies so large a portion of the 
Pacific. This most beautiful of islands presents the boldest 
aspect ; it is indented by arms of the most transparent sea, and 
watered by innumerable streams ; it displays in its vegetation all 
the bright colouring of the tropics. Here the submarine fire finds 
vent in three volcanos on the southern, and one on the northern 
side of the island. A few atolls, many hundreds of miles to the 
south, show that this volcanic zone alternates with an area of sub- 
sidence. 

More to the north, and nearly parallel to the preceding zone, 
another line of volcanic islands begins to the north of New Guinea, 
and passes through New Britain, New Ireland, Solomon Islands, 
and the New Hebrides, containing many open vents. This range 
or area of elevation separates the Coraihne Sea from the great 
chain of atolls on the north between Ellice's group and the Caro- 
line Islands, so that it lies between two areas of subsidence. 

The third and greatest of all the zones of volcanic islands 
includes Gilolo, one of the Molucca group, which is bristled with 
volcanic cones ; and from thence it may be traced northwards 
through the Philippine Islands and Formosa: bending thence to 
the north-east, it passes through Loo-Choo, the Japan Archipelago, 
and is continued by the Kurile Islands to the peninsula of Kamt- 
chatka, where there are several volcanos of great elevation. 

The Philippine Islands and Formosa form the volcanic separa- 
tion between the atoll region in the China Sea, and that of the 
Caroline and Pellew groups. 

There are six islands east of Jephoon in the Japan Archipelago 
which are subject to eruptions, and the internal fire breaks through 



VOLCANIC ISLANDS. 151 

the Kurile Islands in 18 vents, besides having raised two new 
islands in the beginning of this century, one 4 miles round, and 
the other 3000 feet high, though the sea there is so deep that the 
bottom has not been reached with a line 200 fathoms long. 

Thus, some long rent in the earth had extended from the tropics 
to the gelid seas of Okhotsk, probably connected with the penin- 
sula of Kamtchatka : a new one begins to the east of the latter in 
the Aleutian Islands, which are of the most barren and desolate 
aspect, perpetually beaten by the surge of a restless ocean, and 
bristled by the cones of 24 volcanos ; they sweep in a half-moon 
round Behring's Sea till they join the volcanic peninsula of Rus- 
sian America. 

The line of volcanic agency has been followed far beyond the 
limits of the coral-working animals, which extend but a short way 
on each side of the tropics ; but it has been shown that in the 
equatorial regions immense areas of elevation alternate with as 
great areas of subsidence : north of New Holland they are so 
mixed that it indicates a point of convergence.^^ 

On the other side of the Pacific the whole chain of the Andes, 
and the adjacent islands of Juan Fernandez and the Galapagos, 
form a vast volcanic area, which is actually now rising ; and 
though there are few volcanic islands north of the zone of atolls, 
yet those that be indicate great internal activity, especially in the 
Sandwich Islands, where the volcanos of Owhyhee [Hawaii] are 
inferior to none in awful sublimity. That of Kirawah is on the 
flanks of Mowna Roa, which is itself a volcano. It was seen in 
high activity by Mr. Douglas in 1834 ; he describes it as a deep 
sunken pit, occupying five square miles, covered with masses of 
lava which had been in a state of recent fusion. In the midst of 
these were two lakes of liquid lava : in both there was a vast 
caldron in furious ebullition, occasionally spouting to the height 
of from 20 to 70 feet, whence streams of lava, hurrying along in 
fiery waves, were finally precipitated down an ignited arch, where 
the force of the lava was partly arrested by the escape of gasses, 
which threw back huge blocks, and literally spun them into 
threads of glass, which were carried by the wind like the refuse 
of a flax-mill. He says the noise could hardly be described — that 
of all the steam-engines in the world would be a whisper to it ; 
and the heat was so overpowering, and the dryness of the air so 
intense, that the very eyelids felt scorched and dried up.^^ 

It may be observed that, where there are coral fringes, the land 
is either rising or stationary ; for, were it subsiding, lagoons 

8^ Mr. Darwin on Volcanic Islands. 

82 Mr. Douglas's Voyage to the Sandwich Islands in 1833-4. — Journal 
of the Royal Geographical Society of London. 



152 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

would be formed. On the contrary, there are many fringing 
reefs on the shores of volcanic islands along the coasts of the 
Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the West Indian islands, all of 
which are rising. Indeed, this occurrence, in numberless in- 
stances, coincides with the existence of upraised organic remains 
on the land. 

As the only coral formations in the Atlantic are fringing reefs, 
and as there is not one in its central expanse, except in Bermuda, 
it may be concluded that the bed of the ocean is not sinking ; and 
with the exception of the Leeward Islands, the Canaries, the 
Azores, and the Cape de Verde groups, there are no active vol- 
canos on the islands or on the coasts of that ocean. 

At present the great continent has few centres of volcanic 
action in comparison with what it once had. The Mediterranean 
is still undermined by fire, which occasionally finds vent in Vesu- 
vius and the stately cone of Etna. Though Stromboli constantly 
pours forth inexhaustible showers of incandescent matter, and a 
temporary island now and then starts up from the sea, the volcanic 
action is diminished, and Italy has become comparatively more 
tranquil. 

The table-land of Western Asia, especially Azerbijan,had once 
been the seat of intense commotion, now spent, as the Seiban 
Dagh and Ararat, or only smoking from the snowy cone of Dema- 
vend. The table-land of Eastern Asia furnishes the solitary 
instance of igneous explosion at a distance of 1500 miles from 
the sea, in the volcanic chain of the Thean-Tchan. 

Besides the two active volcanos of the Pe-shan and Ho-tcheou 
in the chain itself, at the distance of 670 miles from each other, 
with a solfatara between them, it is the centre of a most extensive 
volcanic district, extending northward to the Altai Mountains, in 
which there are many points of connection between the interior 
of the earth and the atmosphere, not by volcanos, but by solfataras, 
hot springs, and vapours. In the range of Targatabai, in the 
country of the Kirghiz, there is a mount said to emit smoke and 
even flame, which produces sulphur and sal-ammoniac in abun- 
dance. It is not ascertained that there are any mountains in 
China that eject lava, but there are many fire-hills and fire- 
springs ; the latter are real Artesian wells five or six inches wide, 
and from 1500 to 8000 feet deep : from some of these water rises 
containing a great quantity of common salt; from others gases 
issue; and when a flame is applied, fire rushes out with great 
violence, rising 20 or 30 feet high, with a noise like thunder. 
The gas, conducted in tubes of bamboo cane, is used in the evapo- 
ration of salt water from the neighbouring springs. 

There are altogether about 270 active volcanos, of which 190 
are on the shores and islands of the Pacific. They are generally 



ACTIVE VOLCANOS, 153 

disposed in lines or groups. The chain of the Andes furnishes a 
magnificent example of linear volcanos. The peak of TenerifTe, 
encompassed by the volcanic islands of Palma and Lancerote, is 
an equally good specimen of a central group. Eruptions are 
much more frequent in low than in high volcanos: that in the 
island of Stromboli is in perpetual activity; whereas Cotopaxi, 
18,775 feet high, and Tungaragua in the Andes, have only been 
active once in a hundred years. On account of the force requisite 
to raise lava to such great elevations, it rarely flows from very 
elevated cones. Antisana is the only instance to the contrary 
among all the lofty volcanos in Gluito. In Etna also the pressure 
is so great that the lava forces its way through the sides of the 
mountain or at the base of the cone. 

An explosion begins by a dense volume of smoke issuing from 
the crater, mixed with aqueous vapour and gases ; then masses 
of rock and molten matter in a half-fluid state are ejected with 
tremendous explosion and violence; after which lava begins to 
flow, and the whole terminates by a shower of ashes from the 
crater — often the most formidable part of the phenomenon, as was 
experienced at the destruction of Pompeii. There are several 
volcanos which eject only streams of boiling water, as the Volcano 
de Agua in Guatemala ; others pour forth boihng mud, as in the 
islands of Trinidad, Java, and Cheduba in the Bay of Bengal. A 
more feeble effort of the volcanic force appears in the numerous 
solfataras. Hot spings show that the volcanic fire is not extin- 
guished, though not otherwise apparent. To these may be added 
acidulous springs, those of naphtha, petroleum, and various kinds 
of gas, as carbonic acid gas, the food of plants — and, when breathed, 
the destruction of animals, as is fearfully seen in the Guero Upas, 
or " Valley of Death," in Java: it is half a mile in circumference, 
and about 85 feet deep, with a few large stones, and not a vestige 
of vegetation on the bottom, which is covered with the skeletons 
of human beings and the bones of animals and birds blanched 
white as ivory. On approaching the edge of the valley, which 
is situate on the top of a hill, a nauseous sickening sensation is 
felt ; and nothing that has life can enter its precincts without 
being immediately suffbcated.^^ 

The seat of activity has been perpetually changing, but there 
always has been volcanic action, possibly more intense in former 
times, but even at present it extends from pole to pole. 

Notwithstanding the numerous volcanic vents in the globe, 
many places are subject to violent earthquakes, which ruin the 
works of man, and often change the configuration of the country. 

^ Letter from Alex. Loudon^ Esq., in the Journal of the Geographical 
Scciity of London. 



354 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

The most extensive district of earthquakes comprises the Mediter- 
ranean and the adjacent countries, Asia Minor, the Caspian Sea, 
Caucasus, and the Persian mountains. It joins a vast volcanic 
district in Central Asia, whose chief focus seems to be the Thean- 
Tchan, which includes Lake Baikal and the neighbouring regions. 
A great part of the continent of Asia is more or less subject to 
shocks : but, with the exception of the shores of the Red Sea and 
the northern parts of Barbary, Africa is entirely free from these 
tremendous scourges ; and it is singular that, notwithstanding the 
terrible earthquakes which shake the countries west of the Andes, 
the Andean chain itself, and all the countries round the Gulf of 
Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, they are extremely rare in the great 
eastern plains of South America. For the most part the shocks 
are transmitted in the line of the primary mountain-chains, and 
seem often to be limited by them in the other direction. 

There must be some singular volcanic action underneath part 
of Great Britain, which has occasioned 255 slight shocks of earth- 
quake, of which 139 took place in Scotland : the most violent of 
them have been felt at Comre, in Stratherne ; of the rest 14 took 
place on the borders of Yorkshire and Derbyshire, 30 in Wales, 
and 31 on the south coast of England: they were preceded by 
singular phenomena, as a sudden fall of the barometer, frogs, and 
unusual sultriness; the two latter are said to indicate these con- 
vulsions about Siena, and in the Maremma of Tuscany, where 
they have of late years been attended with very disastrous effects. 

Earthquakes are probably produced by fractures and sudden 
heavings and subsidences in the elastic crust of the globe, from 
the pressure of the liquid fire, vapour, and gases in its interior, 
which there find vent, reheve the tension which the strata ac- 
quire during their slow refrigeration, and restore equilibrium. But 
whether the initial impulse be eruptive, or a sudden pressure up- 
wards, the shock originating in that point is propagated through the 
elastic surface of the earth in a series of circular or oval undulations, 
similar to those produced by dropping a stone into a pool, and like 
them they become broader and lower as the distance increases, till 
they gradually subside ; in this mannef the shock travels through 
the land, becoming weaker and weaker till it terminates. When 
the impulse begins in the interior of a continent, the elastic wave 
is propagated through the soHd crust of the earth, as well as in 
sound through the air, and is transmitted from the former to the 
ocean, where it is finally spent and lost, or, if very powerful, is 
continued in the opposite land. Almost all the great earthquakes, 
however, have their origin in the bed of the ocean, far from land, 
whence the shocks travel in undulations to the surrounding 
shores. 

No doubt many of small intensity are imperceptible : it is only 



EARTHQUAKES. 155 

the violent efforts of the internal forces that can overcome the pres- 
sure of the ocean's bed, and that of the superincumbent water. 
The internal pressure is supposed to find relief most readily in a 
belt of great breadth that surrounds the land at a considerable dis- 
tance from the coast, and being formed of the debris, the internal 
temperature is in a perpetual state of fluctuation, which would 
seem to give rise to sudden flexures and submarine eruptions. 

When the original impulse is a fracture or eruption of lava in 
the bed of the deep ocean, two kinds of waves or undulations are 
produced and propagated simultaneously — one through the bed 
of the ocean, which is the true earthquake shock, and coincident 
with this a wave is formed and propagated on the surface of the 
ocean, which rolls to the shore, and reaches it in time to complete 
the destruction long after the shock or wave through the solid 
ocean-bed has arrived and spent itself on the land. The sea rose 
50 feet at Lisbon and 60 at Cadiz after the great earthquake ; it 
rose and fell 18 times at Tangier on the coast of Africa, and 15 
times at Funchal in Madeira. At Kinsale in Ireland a body of 
water rushed into the harbour, and the water in Loch Lomond in 
Scotland rose two feet four inches — so extensive was the oceanic 
wave.^* The height to which the surface of the ground is ele- 
vated, or the vertical height of the shock-wave, varies from one 
inch to two or three feet. This earth-wave, on passing under 
deep water, is imperceptible, but when it comes to soundings it 
carries Avith it to the land a long, flat, aqueous wave ; on arriving 
at the beach, the water drops in arrear from the superior velocity 
of the shock, so that at that moment the sea seems to recede 
before the great ocean-wave arrives. 

It is the small forced wave that gives the shock to ships, and 
not the great wave; but when ships are struck in very deep 
water, the centre of disturbance is either immediately under, or 
very nearly under, the vessel. 

Three other series of undulations are formed simultaneously 
with the preceding, by which the sound of the explosion is con- 
veyed through the earth, the ocean, and the air, with different 
velocities. That through the earth travels at the rate of from 7000 
to 10,000 feet in a second in hard rock, and some-what less in looser 
materials, and arrives at the coast a short time before, or at the 
same moment with, the shock, and produces the hollow sounds that 
are the harbingers of ruin ; then follows a continuous succession 
of sounds, like the rolling of distant thunder, formed, first, by the 
wave that is propagated through the water of the sea, which travels 
at the rate of 4700 feet in a second, and, lastly, by that passing 

^4 Mitchell on the Causes of Earthquakes, in Philosophical Transac- 
tions for 1760. 



156 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

through the air, which only takes place when the origin of the 
earthquake is a submarine explosion, and travels with a velocity 
of 1133 feet in a second. The rolling sounds precede the arrival 
of the great wave on the coasts, and are continned after the terrific 
catastrophe when the eruption is extensive. 

When there is a succession of shocks all the phenomena are 
repeated. Sounds sometimes occur when there is no earthquake: 
they were heard on the plains of the Rio Apure, in Caraccas, at 
the moment the volcano in St. Vincent's, 700 miles off, discharged 
a stream of lava. The bellowings of Guanaxuato afford a singular 
instance : these subterraneous noises have been heard for a month 
uninterruptedly when there was no earthquake felt on the table- 
land of Mexico, nor in the rich silver-mines 1600 feet below its 
surface. 

The velocity of the great oceanic wave varies as the square root 
of the depth ; it consequently has a rapid progress through deep 
water, and less when it comes to soundings. That raised during 
the earthquake at Lisbon travelled to Barbadoes at the rate of 7-8 
miles in a minute, and to Portsmouth at the rate of a little more 
than two miles in a minute. The velocity of the shock varies 
with the elasticity of the strata it passes through. The undula- 
tions of the earth are subject to the same laws as those of light 
and sound ; hence, when the shock or earth-wave passes through 
strata of different elasticity, it will partly be reflected, and a wave 
will be sent back, producing a shock in a contrary direction, and 
partly refracted, or its course changed, so that shocks will occur 
both upwards and downwards, to the right or to the left of the ori- 
ginal line of transit. Hence, most damage is done at the junction 
of deep alluvial plains with the hard strata of the mountains, as in 
the great earthquake in Calabria in the year 1783. 

When the height of the undulations is small, the earthquake 
will be a horizontal motion, which is the least destructive ; when 
the height is great, the central and horizontal motions are combined, 
and the effect is terrible. The concussion was upwards in the 
earthquake which took place at Riobamba in 1797. Baron Hum- 
boldt mentions that some of the inhabitants were thrown across a 
river, several hundred feet in height, on a neighbouring mountain. 
The worst of all is a vorticose or twisting motion, which nothing 
can resist ; it is occasioned by the crossing of two waves of hori- 
zontal vibration, which unite at their point of intersection and 
form a rotatory movement. This, and the interferences of shocks 
arriving at the same point from different origins or routes of differ- 
ent lengths, account for the repose in some places, and those extra- 
ordinary phenomena that took place during the earthquake of 1783 
in Calabria, where the shock diverged on all sides from a centre 
through a highly elastic base covered with alluvial soil, which was 



EARTHQUAKES. 157 

tossed about in every direction. The dynamics of earthquakes are 
ably discussed by Mr. Mallet in a very interesting paper in the 
" Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy." 

There are few places where the earth is long at rest, for, inde- 
pendently of those secular elevations and subsidences that are in 
progress over such extensive tracts of country, small earthquake- 
shocks must be much more frequent than we imagine, though im- 
perceptible to our senses, and only to be detected by means of 
instruments. The shock of an earthquake at Lyons in February, 
1822, was not generally perceptible at Paris, yet the wave reached 
and passed under that city, and was detected by the swinging of 
the large declination needle at the Observatory, which had pre- 
viously been at rest. 

The undulations of some of the great earthquakes have spread 
to an enormous extent. The earthquake that happened in 1842 
in Guadaloupe was felt over an extent of 3000 miles in length; 
and that which destroyed Lisbon had its origin in the bed of the 
Atlantic, from whence the shock extended over an area of about 
700,000 square miles, or a twelfth part of the circumference of the 
globe ; the West Indian islands, and the lakes in Scotland, Nor- 
way, and Sweden were agitated by it. In linear distance the 
effects of that earthquake extended through 300 miles, the shocks 
were felt through a line of 2700 miles, and the vibrations or tre- 
mors were perceptible in water through 4000 miles. It began 
without warning, and in five minutes the city was a heap of ruins. 

The earthquake of 1783, in Calabria, which completely changed 
the face of the country, only lasted two minutes; but it was not 
very extensive, yet all the towns and villages for 22 miles round 
the small town of Oppido were utterly ruined. The destruction 
is generally accomplished in a fearfully short time ; the earthquake 
atCaraccas,in March 1812, consisted of three shocks, which lasted 
three or four seconds, separated by such short intervals that in 50 
seconds 10,000 people perished. Baron Humboldt's works are 
full of interesting details on this subject, especially with regard to 
the tremendous convulsions in South America. 

Sometimes a shock has been perceived under-ground which 
was not felt at the surface, as in the year 1802, in the silver-mine 
of Marienberg, in the Hartz. In some instances miners have been 
insensible to shocks felt on the surface above, which happened at 
Fahlun, in Sweden, in 1823 — circumstances in both instances 
depending on the elasticity of the strata, the depth of the impulses, 
or obstacles that may have changed the course of the terrestrial 
undulation. During earthquakes dislocations of strata take place, 
the course of rivers is changed, and in some instances they have 
been permanently dried up, rocks are hurled down, masses raised 
up, and the configuration of the country altered ; but if there be 
14 



158 PHYSIGAL GTSOGRAPHY. 

no fracture at the point of original impulse, there will be no 
noise. 

The power of the earthquake in raising and depressing the land 
has long been well known, but the gradual and almost impercep- 
tible change of level through immense tracts of the globe is alto- 
gether a recent discovery ; it has been ascribed to the expansion 
of rocks by heat, and subsequent contraction by the retreat of the 
melted matter from beJow them. It is not at all improbable that 
there may be motions, like tides, ebbing and flowing in the internal 
lava, for the changes are by no means confined to those enormous 
elevations and subsidences that appear to be in progress in the 
basin of the Pacific and its coasts, nor to the Andes and the great 
plains east of them — countries for the mos't part subject to earth- 
quakes ; they take place, to a vast extent, in regions where these con- 
vulsions are unknown. There seems to be an extraordinary flexi- 
bility in the crust of the globe from the 54th or 55th parallel of 
north latitude to the Arctic Ocean. There is a line crossing Sweden 
from east to west in the parallel of 56° 3' N. lat., along which the 
ground is perfectly stable, and has been so for centuries. To the 
north of it for 1000 miles, between Gottenburg and North Cape, 
the ground is rising, the maximum elevation, which takes place 
at North Cape, being at the rate of five feet in a century, from 
whence it gradually diminishes to three inches in a century at 
Stockholm. South of the line of stabiUty, on the contrary, the 
land is sinking through part of Christianstad and Malmo, for the 
village of Stassten in Scania is now 380 feet nearer to the Baltic 
than it was in the time of Linnaeus, by whom it was measured 87 
years ago. The coast of Denmark on the sound, the island of 
Saltholm, opposite to Copenhagen, and that of Bornholm are rising, 
the latter at the rate of a foot in a century. The coast of Memel 
on the Baltic has actually risen a foot and four inches within the 
last 30 years, while the coast of Pillau has sunk down an inch 
and a half in the same period. The west coast of Denmark, part 
of the Feroe Islands, and the west coast of Greenland are all being 
depressed below their former level. In Greenland, the encroach- 
ment of the sea, in consequence of the change of level, has sub- 
merged ancient buildings on the low rocky islands, and on the 
main land. The Greenlander never builds near the sea on that 
account, and the Moravian settlers have had to move inland the 
poles to which they moor their boots. It has been in progress for 
four centuries, and extends through 600 miles from Igalito Firth 
to Disco Baj.^ Mr. Robert Chambers has shown that in our own 
country the land has been for ages on the rise, and that the parallel 
roads in Glen Roy, which have so long afforded matter of discus- 
sion, are merely margins left by the retreat of the water, as the land 

Japtain Graah's Survey in 1823-4, and Dr. Pingel, 1830-2. 



GREENLAND. 159 

alternately rose and remained stationary. In the present day the 
elevation is going on in many places, especially on the Murray 
Firth and in the Channel islands. The notice of this curious sub- 
ject of the gradual changes of level on the land has been chiefly 
revived by Sir Charles Lyell, in whose admirable works on geo- 
logy all the details will be found.^^ 



CHAPTER XIV. 



Arctic Lands — Greenland — Spitzbergen' — Iceland- — Its Volcanic Pheno- 
mena and Geysers — Jan Mayen's Land — New Siberian Islands — 
Antarctic Lands — Victoria Continent. 

Greenland, the most extensive of the Arctic lands, begins with 
the lofty promontory of Cape Farewell, the southern extremity of 
a group of rocky islands, which are separated by a channel five 
miles wide from a table-land of appalling aspect, narrow to the 
south, but increasing in breadth northward to a distance of which 
only 1300 miles are known. This table-land is bounded by moun- 
tains rising from the deep in mural precipices, which terminate 
in needles and pyramids, or in parallel terraces, of alternate snow 
and bare rock, occasionally leaving a narrow shore. The coating 
of ice is so continuous and thick that the surface of the table-land 
may be regarded as one enormous glacier, which overlaps the 
rocky edges and dips between the mountain-peaks into the sea. 

The coasts are beset with rocky islands, and cloven by fiords, 
which in some instances wind like rivers for 100 miles into the 
interior. These deep inlets of the sea, now sparkling in sun- 
shine, now shaded in gloom, are hemmed in by walls of rock often 
2000 feet high, whose summits are hid in the clouds. They 
generally terminate in glaciers, which are sometimes forced on by 
the pressure of the upper ice-plains till they fill the fiord, and 
even project far into the sea like bold headlands, when, under- 
mined by the surge, huge masses of ice fall from them with a 
crash like thunder, making the sea boil. 'I'hese icebergs, carried 
by currents, are stranded on the Arctic coast, or are drawn into 
lo.ver latitudes. The ice is very transparent and compact in the 
ArcLiC regions ; its prevailing tints are blue, green, and orange, 
which, contrasted with the dazzling whiteness of the snow and the 
gloomy hue of the rocks, produce a striking effect. 

^^ LyelPs Principles of Geology; in 8vo, See also Mr. Darwin's ob- 
servations on the same subject, in the voyage of the Adventure and 
B 3asle. 



160 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

A great fiord in the 68th parallel of latitude is supposed to 
extend completely across the table-land, dividing the country into 
south and north Greenland, which last extends indefinitely towards 
the pole ; but it is altogether inaccessible from the frozen sea and 
the iron-bound shore, so that, excepting a very small portion of 
the coast, it is an unknown region. 

In some shehered spots in south Greenland, especially along 
the borders of the fiords, there are meadows where the service- 
tree bears fruit, beech and willow trees grow by the streams, but 
not taller than a man ; still farther north the willow and juniper 
scarcely rise above the surface ; yet this country has a flora pecu- 
liar to itself. South of the island of Disco on the west coast, Dan- 
ish colonies and missionaries have made settlements on some of 
the islands and at the mouths of fiords; the Esquimaux inhabit 
the coasts even to the extremity of Bafiin's Bay. 

The pelasgic islands in the Arctic Ocean are highly volcanic, 
with the exception of Spitzbergen. In the island of Spitzbergen 
the mountains spring sharp and grand from the margin of the sea 
in dark gloomy masses, mixed with pure snow and enormous gla- 
ciers, presenting a sublime spectacle. Seven valleys filled by 
glaciers ending at the sea form a remarkable object on the east 
coast. One of the largest masses of ice seen by Captain Scoresby 
on the island was north of Horn Sound: it extended 11 miles 
along the shore, with a sea-face in one part more than 2000 feet 
high, from which he saw a huge fragment hurled into the sea, 
which it lashed into vapour, as it broke into a thousand pieces. 
The sun is not seen for several months in the year, when the 
intensity of the cold splits rocks, and makes the sea reek hke a 
boiling caldron. Many have perished in the attempt to winter in 
this island, yet a colony of Russian hunters and fishermen lead a 
miserable existence there, within 10° of the pole, the most north- 
ern inhabited spot on the globe. 

Although the direct rays of the sun are powerful in sheltered 
spots within the Arctic Circle, the thermometer does not rise 
above 45° of Fahrenheit. July is the only month in which snow 
does not fall, and in the end of August the sea at night is covered 
with a thin coating of ice, and a summer often passes without one 
day that can be called warm. The snow-blink, the aurora, the 
stars, and the moon, which appears ten or twelve days without 
intermission in her northern declination, furnish the greatest light 
the inhabitants enjoy in their long winter. 

Iceland is 200 miles east from Greenland, and lies south of the 
Arctic Circle, which its most northern part touches. Though a 
fifth part larger than Ireland, not more than 4000 square miles 
are habitable, all beside being a chaos of volcanos and ice. 

The peculiar feature of Iceland lies in a trachytic region which 



ICELAND. 161 

seems to rest on an ocean of fire. It consists of two vast parallel 
table-lands covered with ice-clad mountains, stretching from N.E. 
to S.W. through the very centre of the island, separated by a 
longitudinal valley nearly 100 miles wide, which reaches from 
sea to sea. These mountains assume rounded forms, with long 
level summits or domes with sloping declivities, as in the trachytic 
mountains of the Andes and elsewhere ; but such huge masses of 
tufa and conglomerate project from their sides in perpendicular or 
overhanging precipices, separated by deep ravines, that the regu- 
larity of their structure can only be perceived from a distance ; 
they conceal under a cold and tranquil coating of ice the fiery 
germs of terrific convulsions, sometimes bursting into dreadful 
activity, sometimes quiescent for ages. The most extensive of 
the two parallel ranges of Jockuls or Ice Mountains runs along 
the eastern side of the valley, and contains Ordefa, the highest 
point in Iceland, seen like a white cloud from a great distance at 
sea; the western high land passes through the centre of the 
island. 

Glaciers cover many thousand square miles in Iceland, descend- 
ing from the mountains, and pushing far into the low lands. This 
tendency of the ice to encroach has very materially diminished 
the quantity of habitable ground, and the progress of the glaciers 
is facilitated by the influence of the ocean of subterranean fire, 
which heats the superincumbent ground, and loosens the ice. 

The longitudinal space between the mountainous table-lands 
is a low valley 100 miles wide, extending from sea to sea, where 
a substratum of trachyte is covered with lava, sand, and ashes, 
studded with low volcanic cones. It is a tremendous desert, never 
approached without dread even by the natives — a scene of per- 
petual conflict between the antagonist powers of fire and frost, 
without a drop of water or a blade of grass ; no living creature is 
to be seen — not a bird, nor even an insect. The surface is a con- 
fused mass of streams of lava rent by crevices ; and rocks piled 
on rocks, and occasional glaciers, complete the scene of desolation. 
As herds of reindeer are seen browsing on the Iceland moss that 
grows plentifully at its edges, it is presumed that some unknown 
parts may be less barren. The extremities of the valley are more 
especially the theatres of perpetual volcanic activity. At the 
southern end, which opens to the sea in a wide plain, there are 
many volcanos, of which Heckla is most known, from its insu- 
lated position, its vicinity to the coast, and its tremendous erup- 
tions. Between the years 1004 and 1766 twenty-three violent 
eruptions have taken place, one of which continued six years, 
spreading devastation over a country once the abode of a thriving 
colony, now covered with lava, scoria, and ashes : in the year 
1846 it was in full activity. The eruption of the Skaptar Jockul, 
14* 



162 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

which broke out on the 8th of May, 1783, and continued till 
August, is one of the most dreadful recorded. The volcanic fire 
must have been in fearful commotion under Europe, for a tre- 
mendous earthquake ruined a wide extent of Calabria that year, 
and a submarine volcano had been burning fiercely for many 
weeks in the ocean, 30 miles from the south-west cape of Ice- 
land. Its fires suddenly ceased, the island was shaken by earth- 
quakes, when, at the distance of 150 miles, they burst forth with 
almost unexampled fury in Skaptar. The sun was hid many 
months by dense clouds of vapour, which extended to England 
and Holland, and clouds of ashes were carried many hundreds of 
miles to sea. The quantity of matter thrown out in this eruption 
was computed at fifty or sixty thousand millions of cubic yards. 
The lava flowed in a stream in some places from 20 to 30 miles 
broad, and of enormous thickness, which filled the beds of rivers, 
poured into the sea nearly 50 miles from the places of its erup- 
tion, and destroyed the fishing on the coast. Some rivers were 
heated to ebullition, others dried up ; the condensed vapour fell 
in snow and torrents of rain ; the country was laid waste ; famiae 
and disease ensued; and in the course of the two succeeding 
years 1300 people and 150,000 sheep and horses perished. The 
scene of horror was closed by a dreadful earthquake. Previous 
to the explosion an ominous mildness of temperature indicated 
the approach of the volcanic fire towards the surface of the earth; 
similar warnings had been observed before in the eruptions of 
Heckla. 

A semicircle of volcanic mountains on the eastern side of the 
Lake Myvatr is the focus of the igneous phenomena at the north- 
ern end of the great central valley. Leirhnukr and Krabla, on the 
N.E. of the lake, have been equally formidable. After years of 
quiescence they suddenly burst into violent eruption, and poured 
such a quantity of lava into the lake Myvatr, which is 20 miles 
in circumference, that the water boiled many days. There are 
other voicanos in this district no less formidable. Various cal- 
drons of boiling mineral pitch, the shattered craters of ancient 
voicanos, occur at the base of this semicircle of mountains, and 
also on the flanks of Mount Krabla : these caldrons throw up jets 
of the dark matter, enveloped in clouds of steam, at regular inter- 
vals, with loud explosion. That which issues from the crater of 
Krabla must, by Mr. Henderson's description, be one of the most 
terrific objects in nature. 

The eruptive boiling springs of Iceland are perhaps the most 
extraordinary phenomena in this singular country. All the great 
aqueous eruptions occur in the trachytic formation ; they are 
characterized by their high temperature, by holding siHceous 
matter in solution, which they deposit in the form of siliceous 



GEYSERS OF ICELAND. 163 

Sinter, and by the discharge of sulphuretted hydrogen gas. 
Numerous instances of spouting springs occur at the extremities 
of the great central valley, especially at its southern end, where 
more than fifty have been counted in the space of a few acres — 
some constant, others periodical — some merely agitated, or stag- 
nant. The Great Geyser and Strokr, 35 miles north-west from 
Heckla, are the most magnificent ; at regular intervals they pro- 
ject large columns of boiling water 100 feet high, enveloped in 
clouds of steam, with tremendous noise. The tube of the Great 
Geyser whence the jet issues is about 10 feet in diameter and 75 
feet deep ; it opens into the centre of a basin 4 feet deep and 
between 46 and 50 feet in diameter : as soon as the basin is filled 
by the boiling water that rises through the tube, explosions are 
heard, the ground trembles, the water is thrown to the height of 
100 or 150 feet, followed by large volumes of steam. No farther 
explosion takes place till the empty basin and tube are again 
replenished. 

MM. Descloiseaux and Bunsen, who visited Iceland in 1846, 
found the temperature of the Great Geyser, at the depth of 72 
feet, before a great eruption, to be 2601° of Fahrenheit, and after 
the eruption 251 i°; an interval of 28 hours passed without any 
eruption. The Strokr (from stroka, to agitate), 140 yards from 
the Great Geyser, is a circular Avell, a little more than 44 feet 
deep, with an orifice of 8 feet, which diminishes to little more 
than 10 inches at a depth of 27 feet. The surface of the water is 
inconstant ebullition, while at the bottom the temperature exceeds 
that of boiling water by about 24°. By the experiments of M. 
Donny of Ghent, water long boiled becomes more and more free 
from air, by which the cohesion of the particles is so much 
increased that when it is exposed to a heat sufficient to overcome 
the force of cohesion, the production of steam is so instantaneous 
and so considerable as to cause explosion. To this cause he 
ascribes the eruptions of the Geysers, which are in constant ebul- 
lition for many hours, and become so purified from air, that the 
strong heat at the bottom at last overcomes the cohesion of the par- 
ticles, and an explosion takes place. The boiling spring of Tun- 
quhaer, in the valley of Reikholt, is remarkable from having two 
jets, which play alternately for about four minutes each. Some 
springs emit gas only, or gas with a small quantity of water. 
Such fountains are not confined to the land or fields of ice ; they 
occur also in the sea, and many issue from the crevices in the 
lava-bed of Lake My vatr, and rise in jets above the surface of the 
water. 

A region of the same character with the mountains of the Ice- 
landic desert extends due west from it to the extremity of the long 
narrow promontory of the Sneefield Syssel, ending in the snow- 



164 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

clad cone of the Sneefield Jockul, 5000 feet high, one of the most 
conspicuous mountains in Iceland. 

With the exception of the purely volcanic districts described, 
trap-rocks cover a great part of Iceland, which have been formed 
by streams of lava at very ancient epochs, occasionally 4000 feet 
deep. 

The dismal coasts are torn in every direction by fiords, pene- 
trating many miles into the interior, and splitting into endless 
branches. In these fissures the sea is still, dark, and deep, be- 
tween walls of rock 1000 feet high. The fiords, however, do not 
here, as in Greenland, terminate in glaciers, but are prolonged in 
narrow valleys, through which streams and rivers run to the sea. 
In these valleys the inhabitants have their abode, or in meadows 
which have a transient verdure along some of the fiords, where 
the sea is so deep that ships find safe anchorage. 

In the valleys on the northern coast, near as they approach to 
the Arctic Circle, the soil is wonderfully good, and there is more 
vegetation than in any other part of Iceland, with the exception of 
the eastern shore, which is the most favoured portion of this deso- 
late land. Rivers abounding in fish are much more frequent there 
than elsewhere ; willows and juniper adorn the valleys, and birch- 
trees, 20 feet high, grow in the vale of Lagerflest, the only place 
which produces them large enough for house-building, and the 
verdure is fine on the banks of those streams which are heated by 
volcanic fires. 

The climate of Iceland is much less rigorous than that of Green- 
land, and it would be still milder were not the air chilled by the 
immense fields of ice from the Polar Sea which beset its shores. 

The inhabitants are supplied with fuer by the Gulf Stream, 
which brings drift-wood in great quantities from Mexico, the Caro- 
linas, Virginia, the river St. Lawrence, and some even from the 
Pacific Ocean is drifted by currents round by the northern shores 
of Siberia. The mean temperature in the south of the island is 
about 39° of Fahrenheit, that of the central districts 36°, and in 
the north it is rarely above the freezing point. The cold is most 
intense when the sky is clear, but that is a rare occurrence, as the 
wind from the sea covers mountain and valley with thick fog. 
Hurricanes are frequent and furious; and although thunder is sel- 
dom heard in high latitudes, Iceland is an exception, for tremen- 
dous thunder-storms are not uncommon there — a circumstance no 
doubt owing to the volcanic nature of that island, as lightning ac- 
companies volcanic eruptions everywhere. At the northern end 
of the island the sun is always above the horizon in the middle of 
summer, and under it in mid-winter, yet there is no absolute 
darkness. 

The island of Jan Mayen lies midway between Iceland and 



ANTARCTIC LANDS. 165 

Spitzbergen ; it is the most northern volcanic country known. Its 
principal feature is the volcano of Beerenberg, 6870 feet high, 
whose lofty snow-capped cone, apparently inaccessible, has been 
seen to emit fire and smoke. It is flanked by enormous glaciers, 
like frozen cataracts, which occupy three hollows in an almost 
perpendicular clifT, which descends from the base of the mountain 
to the sea. 

The group of New Siberian Islands, which lie north of the pro- 
vince of Yakutsk, and in about 78° of N. lat., have so rude a cli- 
mate that they have no permanent inhabitants ; they are remark- 
able for the vast quantity of fossil bones they contain: the ele- 
phant's tusks found there have for years been an article of com- 
merce. 

The south polar lands are equally volcanic, and as deeply ice- 
bound, as those to the north. Victoria Land, which from its extent 
seems to form part of a continent, was discovered by Sir James 
Ross, who commanded the expedition sent by the British govern- 
ment in 1839 to ascertain the position of the south magnetic 
pole. This extensive tract lies under the meridian of New Zea- 
land; Cape North, its most northern point, is situate in 70° SI'S. 
lat., and 165° 28' E. long. To the west of that cape the northern 
coast of this new land terminates in perpendicular ice-clifTs, from 
200 to 500 feet high, stretching as far as the eye can reach, with 
a chain of grounded icebergs extending for miles from the base of 
the cliffs, all of tabular form, and varying in size from one to nine 
or ten miles in circumference. A lofty range of peaked mountains 
rises in the interior at Cape North, covered with unbroken snow, 
only reheved from uniform whiteness by shadows produced by the 
undulations of the surface. The indentations of the coast are filled 
with ice many hundreds of feet thick, which makes it impossible 
to land. To the east of Cape North the coast trends first to S.E. 
by E. and then in a southerly direction to 78|° of S. lat., at which 
point it suddenly bends to the east, and extends in one continuous 
vertical ice-clifT to an unknown distance in that direction. The 
first view of Victoria Land is described as most magnificent. " On 
the 11th of January, 1841, in about latitude 71° S. and longitude 
171° E., the Antarctic continent was first seen, the general outUne 
of which at once indicated its volcanic character, rising steeply 
from the ocean in a stupendous mountain-range, peak above peak 
enveloped in perpetual snow, and clustered together in countless 
groups resembling a vast mass of crystallization, which, as the 
sun's rays were reflected on it, exhibited a scene of such unequalled 
magnificence and splendour as would baffle all power of language 
to portray, or give the faintest conception of. One very remark- 
able peak, in shape like a huge crystal of quartz, rose to the height 
of 7867 feet, another to 9096, and a third to 8444 feet above the 



166 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

level of the sea. From these peaks ridges descended to the coast, 
terminating abruptly in bold capes and promontories, whose steep 
escarpments, affording shelter to neither icenorsnow,alone showed 
the jet black lava or basalt, which reposed beneath the mantle of 
eternal frost." . ..." On the 28th, in lat. 77° 31' and long. 167° 
1', the burning volcano, Mount Erebus, was discovered, covered 
with ice and snow from its base to its summit, from which a dense 
column of black smoke towered high above the other numerous 
lofty cones and crateriferous peaks with which this extraordinary 
land is studded from the 72d to the 78th degree of latitude. Its 
height above the sea is 12,367 feet, and Mount Terror, an extinct 
crater near to it, which has doubtless once given vent to fires be- 
neath, attains an altitude little inferior, being 10,884 feet in height, 
and ending in a cape, from which a vast barrier of ice extended 
in ^n easterly direction, checking all farther progress south. This 
continuous perpendicular wall of ice, varying in height from 200 
to 100 feet, its summit presenting an almost unvarying level out- 
line, we traced for 300 miles, when the pack-ice obstructed all far- 
ther progress."^'' 

The vertical cliff in question forms a completely solid mass of 
ice about 1000 feet thick, the greater part of which is below the 
surface of the sea; there is not the smallest appearance of a fissure 
throughout its whole extent, and the intensely blue sky beyond 
indicated plainly the great distance to which the ice-plains reach 
southward. Gigantic icicles hang from every projecting point of 
the icy cliff, showing that it sometimes thaws in these latitudes, 
although in the month of February, which corresponds with August 
in England, Fahrenheit's thermometer did not rise above 14° at 
noon. In the North Polar Ocean, on the contrary, streams of water 
flow from every iceberg during the summer. The whole of this 
country is beyond the pale of vegetation : no moss, not even a 
lichen, covers the barren soil where everlasting winter reigns. 
Parry's Mountains, a lofty range, stretching south from Mount 
Terror to the 79th parallel, is the most southern land yet discovered. 
The South Magnetic Pole, one of the objects of the expedition, is 
situate in Victoria Land, in 75° 5' S. lat., and 154° 8' E. long., 
according to Sir James C. Ross's observations. 

Various tracts of land have been discovered near the Antarctic 
Circle, and within it, though none in so high a latitude as Victoria 
Land. Whether they form part of one large continent remains 
to be ascertained. Discovery ships sent by the Russian, French, 
and American governments have increased our knowledge of 
these remote regions, and the spirited adventures of British mer- 

^ Remarks on the Antarctic Continent and Southern Islands; by 
Robert MacCormick, Esq., Surgeon of H. M. S. Erebus. 



VICTORIA LAND. 167 

chants and captains of whalers have contributed quite as much.^ 
The land within the Antarctic Circle is generally volcanic, at 
least the coast-line, which is all that is yet known, and that, beinor 
covered with snow and ice, is destitute of vegetation. [The land 
described by Sir James Ross as Victoria Land, was, in fact, dis- 
covered by the U. S. Exploring Expedition, under the command 
of Charles Wilkes, Esq., U. S. Navy. He says: — "That land 
does exist within the Antarctic Circle is now confirmed by the 
united testimony of both French and English navigators. D'Ur- 
ville, the celebrated French navigator, within a few days after 
land was seen by the three vessels of our squadron^ reports that 
his boats landed on a small point of rocks, at the place (as I sup- 
pose) which appeared accessible to us in Piner's Bay, whende 
the Vincennes was driven by a violent gale; this he called Clarie 
Land, and testifies to his behef of the existence of a vast tract of 
land, where our view of it has left no doubt of its existence. 
Ross, on the other hand, penetrated to the latitude of 79° S. in 
the succeeding year, coasted for some distance along a lofty coun- 
try connected with our Antarctic Continent, and establishes beyond 
all cavil the correctness of our assertion that we have discovered, 
not a range of detached islands, but a vast Antarctic Continent. 
How far Captain Ross was guided in his search by our previous 
discoveries will best appear by reference to the chart, with a full 
account of the proceedings of the squadron, which I sent to him, 
and which I have inserted in Appendix XXIV., and Atlas. Al- 
though I have never received any acknowledgment of their 
receipt from him personally, yet I have heard of their having 
reached his hands a few months prior to his Antarctic cruise."] — 
Wilkes's ''Narrative of the U. S. Exploring Expedition,^' vol. ii., 
p. 281-2. 

^ Captain Cook discovered Sandwich Land in 1772-5. — Captain 
Smith, of the brig William, discovered New South Shetland in 1819. — 
Captain Billingshausen discovered Peter's Island, and the coast of 
Alexander the First. — Captain Weddel discovered the Southern Orcades. 
— Captain Bisco discovered Enderby's Land and Graham's Land in 
1832, Admiral d'Urville La Terre d'Adehe in 1841, and Sir James Ross 
Victoria Land in the same year- 



168 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



CHAPTER XV. 

Nature and Character of Mineral Veins — Metalliferous Deposits — Mines 
— Their Drainage and Ventilation — Their Depth — Diftiision of the 
Metals — Gold — Silver — Lead — British Mines — Quicksilver — Copper 
— Tin— Cornish Mines — Coal — Iron — Most abundant in the Temper- 
ate Zones, especially in the Northern — European and British Iron 
and Coal— American Iron and Coal — Arsenic and other Metals- 
Salt — Sulphur — Diffusion of the Gems. 

The tumultuous and sudden action of the volcano and the earth- 
quake on the great masses of the earth is in strong contrast with 
the calm, silent operations on the minute atoms of matter by which 
Nature seems to have filled the fissures in the rocks with her 
precious gifts of metals and minerals, sought for by man from the 
earliest ages to the present day. Tubal-cain was "[the instructor 
of every artificer in brass and iron." Gold was among the first 
luxuries, and even in our own country, from time immemorial, 
strangers came from afar to carry off the produce of the Cornish 
mines.^9 

The ancients scarcely were acquainted with a third of the 
thirty-five metals now known, and the metallic bases of the alkalis 
only date from the time of Sir Humphry Davy, having formed a 
remarkable part of his brilliant discoveries-^"^ 

^^ The author owes much information on British mines to two publi- 
cations on the Mining District of the North of England, by J. Sopwith, 
Esq., Civil Engineer, and Mr. Leithart, Mine Agent. On the Cornish 
mines she has derived much information from the writings of John 
Taylor, Esq., and Sir Charles Lemon, Bart,; from a store of valuable 
materials contained in the "Progress of the Nation," by G. R. Porter, 
Esq. : from the Statistical Journal ] and on the general distribution of 
minerals over the globe, from the ''Penny Cyclopaedia," and various 
other sources. 

^° The metals are gold, silver, platinum, copper, lead, tin, iron, zinc, 
arsenic, bismuth, antimony, nickel, quicksilver, manganese, cadmium, 
cerium, cobalt, iridium, uranium, chrome, lantanium, molybdenum, 
columbium, osmium, palladium, pelapium, tantalum, tellurium, rho- 
dium, titanium, vanadium, tungsten, dydynium, ferbium, erbium. 
The three last are little known. 

Sir Humphry Davy discovered that lime, magnesia, alumine, and 
other similar substances, are metals combined with oxygen. There 
are thirteen of these mettalloids, namely — calcium, magnesium, alu- 
minum, glucinum, thorium, yttrium, zirconium, strontium, barium, 
lithium, natrium, potassium, and silicium. 



MINERAL VEINS. 169 

Minerals are deposited in veins or fissures of rocks, in masses, 
in beds, and sometimes in gravel and sand, the detritus of water. 
Most of the metals are found in veins; a few, as gold and tin, 
iron and copper, are disseminated through the rocks, though 
rarely. Veins are cracks or fissures in rocks, seldom in a straight 
line, yet they maintain a general direction, though in a zigzag 
form, striking downwards at a very high angle, seldom deviating 
from the perpendicular by so much as forty-five degrees, and 
extending to an unfathomable depth. They are for the most part 
accompanied by a subsidence of the strata on one side of their 
course, and by an elevation on the other; the throw, or perpen- 
dicular distance between the corresponding strata on the opposite 
sides of a vein, varies from a few inches to thirty, forty, even a 
hundred fathoms. The beginning or end of a vein is scarcely 
ever known ; but, when explored, they are found to begin ab- 
ruptly, and, after continuing entire to a greater or less distance, 
they branch into small veins or strings. 

In the downward zigzag course of a vein, the bending of the 
strata upwards on one side and downwards on the other, and the 
chemical changes almost always observed on the adjacent rocks, 
veins bear a strong analogy to the course and effects of a very 
powerful electrical discharge. 

Veins have been filled with substances foreign to them, which 
have probably been disseminated in atoms in the adjacent rocks 
or by sublimation. Nothing can be more certain than that the 
minute particles of matter are constantly in motion from the action 
of heat, mutual attraction, and electricity. Prismatic crystals of 
salts of zinc are changed in a few seconds into crystals of a totally 
different form by the heat of the sun : casts of shells are found in 
rocks, from which the animal matter has been removed, and its 
place supplied by mineral matter; and the excavations made in 
rocks diminish sensibly in size in a short time if the rock be soft, 
and in a longer time when it is hard — circumstances which show 
an intestine motion of the particles, not only in their relative posi- 
tions, but in space, which there is every reason to believe is owing 
to electricity — a power which, if not the sole agent, must at least 
have co-operated essentially in the formation and fiUing of mineral 
veins. ^^ 

The magnetism of the earth is presumed to be owing to elec- 
trical currents circulating through its surface in a direction at 

9> This subject is ably discussed by Mr. Leithart in his work, already 
mentioned, on the formation and filhng of metallic veins. JNlr. Leithart 
is an instance of the intelligence that prevails among miners, notwith- 
standing the scanty opportunities of acquiring that knowledge which 
they are generally so eager to obtain. He was a working miner, whose 
only education was at a Sunday-school. 
15 



170 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

right angles to the magnetic meridians. Mr. Fox, so well known 
in the scientific world, has long since shown, from observations 
in the Cornish mines, that such currents do flow through all 
metalHc veins. Now, as the different substances of which the 
earth is composed are in different states of electro-magnetism, 
and are often interrupted by non-conducting rocks, the electric 
currents, being stopped in their course, act chemically on all the 
liquids and substances they meet with. Hence, Mr. Fox has 
come to the conclusion that not only the nature of the deposits 
must have been determined by their relative electrical conditions, 
but that the direction of the metallic veins themselves must have 
been influenced by the direction of the magnetic meridians ; and, 
in fact, almost all the metallic deposits in the world are in parallel 
veins or fissures tending from east to west, or from north-east to 
south-west. Veins at right angles to these are generally non- 
metalliferous, and, if they do contain metallic ores, they are of a 
different kind. In some few cases both contain the same ore, 
but in very different quantities, as in the silver-mine at Pasco, in 
the Andes, and both veins are richer near the point of crossing 
than elsewhere. 

Sir Henry de la Beche conceives that the continued expansion 
and elevation of an intensely heated mass from below would 
occasion numerous vertical fissures through the superincumbent 
strata, within which some mineral matters may have been drawn 
up by subhmation, and others deposited in them when held in 
solution by ascending and descending streams of water ; but 
even on this hypothesis the direction of the rents and the deposi- 
tion of the minerals would be influenced by the electrical currents. 
But if veins were filled from below, the richest veins would be 
lowest, which is not the case in Cornwall, Mexico, or Peru.^^ 
The primum mobile of the whole probably lies far beyond our 
globe : we must look to the sun's heat, if not as the sole cause of 
electrical currents, at least as combined with the earth's rotation 
in their evolution. ^^ 

When veins cross one another, the traversed veins are pre- 
sumed to be of prior formation to those traversing, because the 
latter are dislocated and often heaved out of their course at the 

^ Mineral veins are generally richer near the surface than at great 
depths : this is particularly the case in the mines of the precious metals 
in America, where the greatest quantities of ore have been found near 
the surface — a fact that may be explained by supposing the mineral 
substances brought by sublimation from the interior of the earth, and 
deposited where the temperature was lowest at or near the surface in 
the rocks among which they are situated. 

^ Rotation alone produces electrical currents in the earth. — '^Con- 
nection of the Physical Sciences," page 364, 7th edition. 



METALLIFEROUS DEPOSITS. 171 

point of meeting ; and such is the case with the metalHferous 
veins, which are therefore the most recent. Veins are rarely- 
filled in every part with ore ; they contain sparry and stony 
matter, called its matrix, with here and there irregular masses of 
the metallic ores, often of great size and value. Solitary veins 
are generally unproductive, and veins are richer when near one 
another. The prevalence and richness of mineral veins are inti- 
mately connected with the proximity or junction of dissimilar 
rocks, where the electro-molecular and electro-chemical actions 
are most energetic. Granite, porphyry, and the plutonic rocks 
are often eminently metaUiferous ; but mineral deposits are also 
abundant in rocks of sedimentary origin, especially in and near 
situations where these two classes of rocks are in contact with 
one another, or where the metamorphic structure has been 
induced upon the sedimentary. This is remarkably the case in 
Cornwall, the north of England, in the Ural, and all the great 
mining districts. 

The metaUiferous deposits are peculiar to particular rocks : 
gold and tin are most plentiful in granite and the rocks lying 
immediately above it ; copper is deposited in various slate form- 
ations resting on the preceding, and in the trias ; lead is found in 
the mountain-limestone system, and is rare where iron and cop- 
per abound ; iron abounds in the coal and oolitic strata, and in a 
state of oxidule and carbonate in the older rocks ; and silver is 
found in almost all" of these formations ; its ores being frequently 
combined with those of other metals, especially of lead and copper. 
There is such a connection between the contents of a vein and 
the nature of the rock in which the fissure is, that, when in the 
oldest rocks the same vein intersects clay-slate and granite, the 
contents of the parts enclosed in one rock differ very much from 
what is found in the other. It is beheved that in the strata lying 
above the coal-measures none of the more precious metals have 
been found in England in such plenty as to defray the expense 
of raising them, although such a rule does not extend to the con- 
tinent of Europe or to South America, where copper and silver 
ores abound in our new red sandstone series. In Great Britain 
no metal is raised in any stratum newer than the magnesian 
limestone. Metals exist chiefly in the primary and early secondary 
strata, especially near the junction of the granite and slates ; and 
it is a fact that rich veins of lead, copper, tin, &c., abound only 
in and near the districts which have been greatly shaken b}?- sub- 
terraneous movements. In other countries, as Auvergne and the 
Pyrenees, the presence of igneous rocks may have caused mineral 
veins to appear in more recent strata than those waich contain 
them in Great Britain. 

When a mine is opened, a shaft like a well is sunk perpen- 



172 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

dicularly from the surface of the ground, and from it horizontal 
galleries are dug at different levels according to the direction of 
the metaUic veins, and gunpowder is used to blast the rocks 
when too hard for the pickaxe. When mines extend very far in 
a horizontal direction, it becomes necessary to sink more shafts, 
for ventilation as well as for facility in raising the ore. Such is 
the perfection of underground surveying in England, that the 
work can be carried on at the same time from above and below so 
exactly as to meet ; and in order to accelerate the operation, the 
shaft is worked simultaneously from the different galleries or 
levels of the mine. In this manner a perpendicular shaft was 
sunk 204 fathoms deep, about nineteen years ago, in the Con- 
solidated mines in Cornwall ; it was finished in twelve months, 
having been worked in fifteen different points at once. In that 
mine there are ninety-five shafts, besides other perpendicular 
communications under-ground from level to level: the depth of 
the whole of these shafts added together amounts to about 25 
miles ; the galleries and levels extend horizontally about 43 miles, 
and 2500 people are employed in it: yet this is but one of many 
mines now in operation in the mining district of Cornwall 
alone. 9* 

The infiltration of the rain and surface-water, together with 
subterranean springs and pools, would soon inundate a mine and 
put a stop to the work, were not adequate means employed to 
remove it. The steam-engine is often the only way of accom- 
plishing what in many cases would otherwise be impossible, and 
the produce of mines has been in proportion to the successive 
improvements in that machine. In the Consolidated mines 
already mentioned there are nine steam-engines constantly 
pumping out the water; four of these, which are the largest 
ever made, together lift from thirty to fifty hogsheads of water 
per minute, from an average depth of 280 fathoms. The power 
of the steam-engines in draining the Cornish mines is equal to 
44,000 horses — one-sixth of a bushel of coals performing the 
work of a horse. The largest engine is between 300 and 350 
horse-power ; but as horses must rest, and the engine works 
incessantly, it would require 1000 horses to do its work.^^ 

Mines in high ground are sometimes drained to a certain 
depth by an adit or gallery dug from the bottom of a shaft in a 
sloping direction to a neighbouring valley. One of these adits 
extends through the large mining district of Gwennap, in Corn- 
wall ; it begins in a valley near the sea, and very little above its 

^'^ J. Taylor, Esq.. on Cornish mines. 

^^ The total amount of steam-power in Great Britain in 1833 was 
equal to that of 2,000,000 of men.^J. Taylor, Esq., on Cornish Mines. 



DEPTH OF MINES. 173, 

level, and goes through all the neighbouring mines, which it 
drains to that depth, and with all its ramifications is 30 miles 
long. Nent Force Level, in the north of England, forms a similar 
drain to the mines in Alston Moor: it is a stupendous aqueduct 
9 feet broad, and in some places from 16 to 20 feet high ; it 
passes for more than 3 miles under the course of the river Nent 
to Nentsbury engine-shaft, and is navigated underground by long 
narrow boats. Daylight at its mouth is seen like a star at the 
distance of a mile in the interior. Most of the adits admit of the 
passage of men and horses, with rails at the sides for wagons. 

The ventilation of mines is accomplished by burning fires in 
some of the shafts, which are in communication with the others, 
so that currents of air flow up one and down the others. In some 
cases fresh air is carried into the mines by streams that are made 
to flow down some of the shafts. Were this not done, the heat, 
which increases with the depth, would be insupportable ; venti- 
lation diminishes the danger from the fire-damp, for, even where 
Sir Humphry Davy's safety-lamp is used, accidents happen from 
the carelessness of the miners. ^^ 

The access to deep mines, as in Cornwall, is by a series of per- 
pendicular or slightly inclined ladders, sometimes uninterrupted, 
but generally broken at intervals by resting-places. It is com- 
puted that one-third of a miner's physical strength was exhausted 
in ascending and descending a deep mine : they are now drawn 
up by the steam-engine. 

The greatest depth to which man has excavated is nothing 
when compared with the radius of the earth. The Eselschacht 
mine at Kuttenberg in Bohemia, now inaccessible, which is 3778 
feet below the surface, is deeper than any other mine. Its depth 
is only 150 feet less than the height of Vesuvius, and it is eight 
times greater than the height of the pyramid of Cheopos, or the 
cathedra] of Strasburg. The Monkwearmouth coal-mine near 
Sunderland, descends to 1500 feet below the level of the sea, so 
that the barometer stands there at 31*80, which is higher than 
anywhere on the earth's surface. ^^ The salt-works of New 

^ The splendid discovery of Sir Humphry Davy, that flame does not 
pass through fine wire-gauze, prevents the fatal explosion of inflam- 
mable air in the mines, by which thousands of lives have been lost. 
By means of a light enclosed in a wire-gauze lantern, a miner now 
works with safety surrounded by fire-damp. To the honour of the 
illustrious author of this discovery, be it observed that it was not, like 
that of gunpowder and others, tiie unforseen result of chance by new 
combinations of matter, but the solution of a question based on scientific 
experiment and induction, which it required the genius of a philosophic 
mind like his to arrive at, 

^■^ Suppposing the barometer to be 30 inches on the level of the sea. 
15* 



174 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

Saltzwerk in Prussia are 2231 feet deep, and 1993 feet below 
the level of the sea; and various other mines, such as the Liege 
coal-mine of Esperance, and that of Mont Massi, in the Maremma 
of Tuscany, do the same. Mines on high ground may be very 
deep without extending to the sea-level: that of Valenciana, near 
Guanaxuato in Mexico, is 1686 feet deep, yet its bottom is 5960 
feet above the surface of the sea ; and the mines in the higher 
Andes must be much more. For the same reason the rich mine 
of Joachimsthal in Bohemia, 2120 feet deep, has not yet reached 
that level. The fire-springs at Tseu-lieu-tsing in China are 3197 
feet deep, but their relative depth is unknown. ^^ How insig- 
nificant are all the works of man compared with nature ! — A line 
27,600 feet long did. not reach the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. 

The metals are very profusely diffused over the earth. Few 
countries of any extent do not contain some of them. A small 
number occur pure, but in general they are in the form of ores, in 
which the metal is chemically combined with other substances, and 
the ore is often so mixed with earthy matter and rock that it is 
necessary to reduce it to a coarse powder in order to separate the 
ore, which is rarely more than a third or fourth part of the mass 
brought above ground. 

Gold is found in almost every country, but in such minute 
quantities that it is often not worth the expense of working. It 
is almost always in a native state, and in the form of crystals, 
grains, or rolled masses. Sometimes it is combined with silver. 
It is exhausted in several parts of Europe where it was formerly 
found. The united produce of the mines in Transylvania, Hun- 
gary, the north-western districts of Austria, and the bed of the 
Danube, is nearly 60,000 ounces annually. Gold is found in 
small quantities in Spain, in the lead-hills in Scotland, and the 
Wicklow mountains in Ireland. 

Gold abounds in Asia, especially in Siberia. The deposits at 
the foot of the Ural mountains are very rich. In 1826 a piece of 
pure gold weighing 23 pounds was found there, along with others 
weighing three or four pounds each, together with the bones of 
elephants. All the diluvium there is ferruginous ; and more to 
the east, as already mentioned, a region as large as France has 
lately been discovered with a soil rich in gold-dust, resting on 
rocks filled with it. In 1834 the treasures in that part of the 
Altai chain called the Gold Mountains were discovered, forming 
a mountain-knot nearly as large as England, from which a great 
quantity of gold has been extracted. Gold is found in Tibet, in 
the Chinese province of Yun-nan, and abundantly in the moun- 

58 Note to the English translation of Kosmos, by Colonel Sabine^ on 
the depths below the surface of the earth attained by man. 



DIFFUSION OF METALS. 175 

tains of the Indo-Chinese peninsula, in Japan, and Borneo. In 
the latter island it occurs near the surface in six different places. 

Africa has long furnished a large supply to Europe. That 
part of the Kong Mountains west of the meridian of Greenwich 
is one of the most auriferous regions in the world. The gold 
stratum hes from 20 to 25 feet helow the surface, and increases in 
richness with the depth. It is found in particles and pieces in a 
reddish sand. Most of the streams from the table-land bring 
down gold, as well those that descend to the low ground to the 
north, as those that flow to the Atlantic. On the shores of the 
Red Sea it was found in sufficient quantity to induce the Portu- 
guese to form a settlement there. 

In South America, the western Cordillera is poor in metals 
except in New Grenada, where the most westerly of the three 
chains of the Andes is rich in gold and platinum — a metal found 
only there, in Brazil, and on the European side of the Ural moun- 
tains — in alluvial deposits. The largest piece of platinum that 
has been found weighed 21 ounces. Gold is found in sand and 
gravel on the high plains of the Andes, on the low lands to the 
east of them, and in almost all the rivers that flow on that side. 
The whole country between Jaen de Bracamores and the Gua- 
viare is celebrated for its metallic riches. Almost all the Bra- 
zihan rivers bring down gold ; and the mine of Gongo Socco, 
near Rio de Janeira, is said to yield several varieties of gold-ore. 
Central America, Mexico, and CaHfornia are auriferous countries. 
The quantity of gold recently found near the surface in Cahfornia 
is very great. [There is no definite statement of the amount.] 
A considerable quantity is found in Tennessee, the mountains of 
Georgia, and on 1000 square miles of North Carolina it occurs in 
grains and masses. 

A great deal of silver is raised in Europe. The mines of Hun- 
gary are the most productive, especially those in the mountains 
of Chemnitz. The metalliferous mountains of the Erzgebirge 
are also very rich, as also the mines near Christiania in Sweden. 
Silver is also found in Saxony, Transylvania, and Austria. In 
no part of the old continent is silver in greater abundance than in 
the Ural and Altai mountains, especially in the district of Koly- 
wan. There are silver-mines in Armenia, Anatolia, Tibet, China, 
Cochin-China, and Japan. 

The richness of the Andes in silver can hardly be conceived, 
but the mines are frequently on such high ground that the profits 
are diminished by the difficulty of carriage, the expense of living 
in a barren country, sometimes destitute of water, where the 
miners suffer from the cold and snow, and especially the want of 
fuel. This is particularly the case at the silver-mines of Copiapo 
in Chile, where the country is utterly barren, and not a drop of 



176. PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

water is to be found in a circuit of nine miles. These mines 
were discovered by a poor man in 1832, who hit upon a mass of 
silver in rooting out a tree. They extend over 150 square leagues. 
Sixteen veins of silver were found in the first four days, and, 
before three weeks elapsed, forty more, not reckoning smaller 
ramifications, were discovered. The rolled pieces which lay on 
the surface produced a large quantity of pure silver. A single 
mass weighed 5000 pounds. ^9 

In Peru there are silver-mines along the whole range of the 
Andes, from Caxamarea to the confines of the desert of Atacama. 
The richest at present are those of Pasco, which were discovered 
by an Indian in 1630. They have been worked without inter- 
ruption since the beginning of the seventeenth century, and seem 
to be still inexhaustible. The soil under the town of Pasco is 
metalliferous, the ores probably forming a series of beds contem- 
poraneous with the strata. The richness of these beds is not 
everywhere the same, but the nests of ore are numerous. The 
mines of Potosi, 16,150 feet above the sea-level, are celebrated 
for riches, but the owners have to contend with all the difficulties 
which such a situation imposes. The small depth at which the 
silver lies on the high plains of the Andes, and the quantity of 
it on the surface, is probably owing, as has been already stated, 
to the greater deposition of the sublimed mineral from refrigera- 
tion near the surface. The ore in the mines at Chota is near the 
surface over an extent of half a square league, and the filaments 
of silver are sometimes even entwined with the roots of the grass. 
This mine is 13,300 feet above the level of the sea, and even in 
summer the thermometer is below the freezing-point in the night. 
In the district of Huantajaya, not far from the borders of the 
Pacific, there are mines where masses of pure silver are found, 
of which one weighed 800 pounds. ^°° 

According to Baron Humboldt, the quantity of the precious 
metals brought to Europe between the discovery of America and 
the year 1803 was worth 1257 millions sterling ; and the silver 
alone taken from the mines during that period would form a ball 
89 feet in diameter. The disturbed state of the South American 
republics has interfered with the working of the mines. 

Lead-ore is very often combined with silver, and is then called 
Argentiferous Galena. It is one of the principal productions of 
the British mines, especially in the northern mining district, 
which occupies 400 square miles at the junction of Northumber- 
land, Cumberland, Westmoreland, Durham, and Yorkshire. It 
comprises Alstan Moor, the mountain-ridge of Crossfell, and the 

s9 Dr. Pceppig's "Travels in Chile and Peru." 
w Dr. PcBppig. 



DIFFUSION OF METALS. 177 

dales of Derwent, East and West Allen, the Wear, and Tees. 
There are other extensive mining tracts separated from this by 
cultivated ground. The principal products of this rich district are 
lead and copper. The lead-mines lie chiefly in the upper dales 
of the Tyne, Wear, and Tees, and all of it contains more or less 
silver, though not always enough to indemnify the expense of 
refining or separating the silver. The deleterious vapours result- 
ing from this process are conveyed in a tube along the surface of 
the ground for 14 miles ; and instead of being, as formerly, a dead 
loss to the proprietor, they are condensed in their passage, and in 
one instance yield metal to the annual value of 10,000/.^ The 
Hudgillburn lead-mine in that district has yielded treasures almost 
unexampled in the annals of mining. The veins, from ten to 
tvi^elve, and in some places even tvv^enty feet wide, were filled 
with ore w^hich is entirely obtained with the pickaxe, without 
blasting. In 1821 the galena of this mine yielded 32,000 ounces 
of silver. 

Lead-mines are in operation in France, but not to any great 
amount : those of the south of Spain furnish large quantities of 
this metal ; also in Saxony, Bohemia, and Carinthia, where they 
are very rich. Lead is not very frequently found in Siberia, 
though it does occur in the Nerchinsk mining district, in the 
basin of the river Amur. It is also a production of China, of the 
peninsula beyond the Ganges, and of America. It is also found 
in Lower Peru, Mexico, and in CaHfornia, where the richest 
argentiferous lead is worked. 

[The northwest country, or Upper Mississippi Valley, is among 
the most remarkable in the world for the variety and abundance 
of its mineral deposits, and especially for those which are of most 
extensive use in the arts. The sulphuret of lead occupies about 
one degree of latitude, extending north from a point on the Missis- 
sippi, about eight miles below Galena, and lying on both sides, 
varying in width, till it covers as great an extent from east to 
west. On the east side of the river the lead-ore is found principally 
in a clay matrix, at a depth of sometimes only five or six feet from 
the surface ; on the west side of the river it runs at the depth of 
one hundred feet or more, overlaid with magnesian limestone. 
To the south-west of the lead deposit is a very abundant bed of 
iron, about forty miles long by twenty-five broad. The copper 
region extends north from the lead deposits to Lake Superior ; it 
embraces about three hundred square miles. To the south of 
the lead region is a vast bed of bituminous coal of good quality, 
at no great distance below the surface. 

In the mineral district there are about four thousand persons 

^ Constructed under the direction of Thomas Sopwith, Esq. 



178 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

employed in digging lead-ore. The value of the lead annually 
produced is estimated at $1,500,000. A considerable quantity, in 
form of pig-lead, is exported to China.] 

Q,uicksilver — a metal so important in separating silver from its 
ores, and in other arts as well as in medicine — occurs either liquid 
in the native state, or combined with sulphur in that of ^cinnabar. 
It is found in the mines of Idria and some other places^ in the 
Austrian empire, in the Palatinate on the left bank of the Rhine, 
and in Spain. The richest quicksilver mines of Europe, at the 
present day, are those of Almaden, where the quicksilver is found 
in the state of sulphuret chiefly. These mines were worked 700 
years before the Christian era, and as many as 1200 tons of the 
metal are extracted annually. It occurs in China, Japan, and 
Ceylon, at San Onofro in Mexico ; and in Peru, at Guancavelica, 
the mines of which, now almost deserted, produced, up to the 
beginning of the present century, the enormous quantity of 
54,000 tons of quicksilver. The discovery of quicksilver mines 
in California has been announced. 

Copper is of such common occurrence that it would be vain to 
enumerate the localities where it is found. It is produced in 
Africa and America, in Persia, India, China, and Japan. _ The 
Siberian mines are very productive both in ore and native copper. 
Malachite is the most beautiful of the ores, and the choicest spe- 
cimens come from Siberia. Almost every country in Europe 
yields copper. The mines in Sweden, Norway, and Germany 
are very productive; and it forms a principal part of our own 
mineral wealth. It is raised in all the principal mining districts 
in England and Wales. In Cornwall it is very plentiful, and is 
often associated with tin. The period at which the Cornish mines 
Avere first worked goes far beyond history, or even tradition : cer- 
tain, however, it is that the Phoenicians came to Britain for tin. 
Probably copper was also worked very early in small quantities, 
for its exportation was forbidden in the time of Henry VIII. It 
was only in the beginning of the eighteenth century that the 
Cornish copper-mines were worked with success, in consequence 
of the invention of an improved machine for draining them.^ 

[On the lands south of Lake Superior is a body of copper ore, 
supposed to be the richest in the world. It is almost pure in 
some specimens : so that, as taken from the earth, it was wrought 
into church utensils by some of the French who first visited the 
place ; and a portion of the large rock deposited on the grounds 
of the War Department, at Washington, has been polished so as 
to present the appearance of sheet-copper. 

At a recent meeting of the "American Association for the Ad- 

2 Sir Charles Lemon^ Bart. 



DIFFUSION OF METALS. 179 

vancement of Science," held at Cambridge, Mass., August 1849, 
Mr. J. S. Hodge, spealcing of the miaeral region of Lake Supe- 
rior, said : — " The mines are wrought wholly for native copper. 
The veinstone with scattered particles, furnish what is called 
stamp work; which is crushed under heavy stamps and then 
washed ; the lumps are called barrel ore, being packed in barrels 
for transportation ; and the masses, after being cut up into pieces 
not exceeding two tons in weight, are shipped in bulk. The size 
of some of these masses is so enormous as almost to exceed belief. 
They have been broken up in the Cliff mine of 60 and even 80 
tons in weight. Such pieces are reduced, in the mine, to frag- 
ments of seven tons weight and less, and after being hoisted to 
the surface are still further reduced. 

" At the Minesota mine, near the Ontonagon river, I had an 
opportunity of examining, in June, the most extraordinary mass 
yet met with. Two shafts had been sunk on the line of the vein 
150 feet apart. At the depth of about 30 feet they struck massive 
copper, which lay in a huge sheet with the same underlay as 
that of the vein — about 55° towards the north. Leaving this 
sheet as a hanging wall, a level was run under it connecting the 
two shafts. For this whole distance of 150 feet the mass appears 
to be continuous, and how much further it goes on the line of the 
vein either way there is no evidence, nor beside to what depth 
it penetrates in the solid vein. I examined it with care, striking 
it repeatedly with my hammer in order to detect, if possible, by 
the sound, any break or interruption there might be in the mass-^ 
for a thin scale of stone encrusted it sometimes and concealed the 
face of the metal. Examinations had been made by drilling 
through this scale, where it attained the thickness of an inch or 
so; but in no place had any sign of a break been found. It forms 
the whole hanging wall of the level, showing a width of at least 
eight feet above the floor in which its lower edge v/as lost. It 
had been cut through in only one place, where a partial break 
afforded a convenient opportunity. Measuring the thickness here 
as well as the irregular shape of the gap admitted, it was found 
somewhat to exceed five feet. Assuming the thickness to average 
only one foot, there would be in this mass 1200 cubic feet, or 
about 250 tons — still it is not safe to assume even one foot, for 
the masses vary extremely in thickness. 

" The mode adopted to remove these masses is to cut channels 
through them with cold chisels, after they are shattered by large 
sand blasts put in behind them. Grooves are cut with the chisels 
across their smallest places, one man holding, and another striking, 
as in drilling. A chip of copper three-quarters of an inch wide, 
and up to six inches in length, is taken out, and the process is 
repeated until the groove passes through the mass. The expense 



180 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

of this work is from eight to twelve dollars per superficial foot of 
the face exposed. Fragments of veinstone enclosed in the cop- 
per prevent the use of saws. A powerful machine, occupying 
little room, is much needed, which would perform more economi- 
cally this work. 

" The greatest thickness of any mass cut through at the ChfF 
Mine has been about three feet. Their occurrence through the 
vein is not regular. Barren spots alternate with productive por- 
tions. The same is the case in all the mines. The total product 
of the Cliff Mine for the year 1848 is estimated at 830 tons, 
averaging 60 per cent. During the present year more than half 
this amount has been already sent down, and there is enough 
more on the surface and in sight in the mine to warrant the belief 
that 1000 tons will be the product of the year's work, or 600 tons 
of copper. The whole amount of copper annually imported into 
the United States is about the value of two million dollars, or 
about 5400 tons. But little has been supplied from our own 
mines. Nine such mines, then, as the Cliff, would render us 
independent of foreign supplies. From present appearances, 
after careful examination of the region, and consideration of the 
progress made in mining since my last visit in 1846, I feel my- 
self warranted in expressing a decided conviction that this amount 
of copper must be supplied in very few years, and this metal 
soon become, as lead already has, one of export instead of import. 
The recent failures of mining speculations, wildly undertaken, 
and ignorantly and extravagantly conducted, may for a time check 
the development of these mines ; but their wonderfully rich cha- 
racter is now beginning to be properly appreciated, as well as 
the reliance which may be put in the surface-appearance of the 
veins. Some curious features in their character and distribution 
have been detected, which have heretofore escaped observation 
for want of sufficient data, and which will, I believe, be found of 
great consequence in the selection of the best localities. These, 
after farther examination, I may at another time make public. 
The history of these mines, so far, has remarkably proved the 
foresight and^excellent judgment of the lamented Dr. Houghton, 
particularly so in his predictions of the disastrous effects that 
must result from such speculations as have caused the country to 
be overrun by hordes of adventurers. 

"The silver found associated with the copper has not proved 
of much importance, perhaps for the reason that the greater part 
of it is purloined by the miners. The Cliff Mine has probably 
yielded more than thirty thousand dollars worth, of which not 
more than a tenth part has been secured by the proprietors. I 
saw myself, the present season, no less than six pounds and eight 
ounces of lumps and bars of silver seized in the hands of an ab- 
sconding workman."] 



IRON AND COAL. 181 

In Cornwall clay-slate rests upon granite, and is traversed by 
porphyritic dykes. The veins which contain copper or tin, or 
both, run east and west, and penetrate both the granite and the 
clay-slate. The non-metalliferous veins run north and south ; 
and if veins in that direction do contain any metal, it never is tin 
or copper, but lead, silver, cobalt, or antimony, which with little 
exception are believed to be always in the clay-slate. No miner 
in Cornwall has ever seen the end or bottom of a vein ; their 
width varies from the thickness of a sheet of paper to 30 feet ; 
the average is from one to three feet. It rarely happens that 
either tin or copper is found nearer the surface than 80 or 100 
feet. If tin be first discovered, it sometimes disappears after 
sinking the mine 100 feet deeper, when copper is found, and in 
some instances tin is found 1000 feet deep without a trace of 
copper ; but if copper is first discovered, it is very rarely suc- 
ceeded by tin. Tin is found in rolled pieces, in horizontal beds 
of sand and gravel, and is called stream-tin. The most valuable 
tin-mines on the continent of Europe are those in Saxony; it also 
occurs in France, Bohemia, and Spain. One of the richest de- 
posits of tin known is in the province of Tenasserim, on the east 
side of the gulf of Martaban, in the Malayan peninsula. These 
deposits occur in several parts of that country ; the richest is 
a layer eight or ten feet thick of sand and gravel, in which masses 
of oxide of tin are sometimes the size of a pigeon's egg. The 
best of all comes from the island of Banca, at the extremity of the 
Malacca peninsula ; a large portion of it is imported into Britain, 
and much goes to China. It is found in the alluvial tracts through 
every part of the island, rarely more than 25 feet below the sur- 
face. Great deposits occur also in the Siberian mining district 
of Nertshinsk, near the desert of the Great Gobi, and in Bolivia, 
near Oruro. 

There are comparatively few coal-mines worked within the 
tropics ; they are mostly in the temperate zones, especially be- 
tween the Arctic Circle and the Tropic of Cancer ; and as iron, 
the most useful of metals, is chiefly found in the carboniferous 
strata, it follows the same distribution. In fact, the most produc- 
tive iron-mines yet known are in the temperate zones. In the 
eastern mining district of Siberia, in the valley of the river Vilui, 
the ores are very rich, and very abundant in many parts of the 
Altai and Ural. In the latter, the mountain of BJagod, at 1534 
feet above the sea, is one mass of magnetic iron-ore. ^ Coal and 
iron are worked in so many parts of Northern China, Japan, 
India, and Eastern Asia, that it would be tedious to enumerate 
them. 



3 M. Erman's '' Travels in Siberia." 
16 



182 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

In Europe the richest mines of iron, like those of coal, lie 
chiefly north of the Alps. Sweden, Norway, Russia, Germany, 
Styria, Belgium, and France, all contain it plentifully. In Britain 
many of the coalfields contain subordinate beds of a rich argilla- 
ceous iron-ore, interstratified with coal, worked at the same time 
and in the same manner ; besides, there is a substratum of lime- 
stone, Avhich serves as a flux for melting the metal. The mines 
lie near Birmingham, on the northeast frontier of the great coal- 
basin of South Wales, near Pontypool and Merthyr Tydyil. 
There are extensive iron-mines in Staffordshire, Shropshire, 
North and South Wales, Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and Scotland. 
AUogether there are about 220 mines, which yield iron sufficient 
for our own enormous consumption, and for exportation. These 
productive mines would have been of no avail had it not been for 
the abundance of fuel with which the greater part of them in the 
north of England, Scotland, and Wales are associated — the great 
source of our national weaUh, more precious than mines of gold. 
Most of the coal-mines would have been inaccessible but for the 
means which their produce affords of draining them at a small 
expense. A bushel of coals, which costs only a few pence, in 
the furnace of a steam-engine generates a power w^hich in a few 
minutes will raise 20,000 gallons of water from a depth of 360 
feet— an effect which could not be accomphshed in a shorter time 
than a whole day by the continuous labour of twenty men work- 
ing Avith the common pump. Yet this circumstance, so far from 
lessening the demand for human labour, has caused a greater 
number of men to be employed in the mines.* 

The coal strata lie in basins, dipping from the sides towards the 
centre, which is often at a vast depth below the surface of the 
ground. The centre of the Liege coal-basin is 21,858 feet, or 8^ 
geographical miles deep, which is easily estimated from the dip, 
or incUnation, of the strata at the edges, and the extent of the basin. 
The coal hes in strata of small thickness and great extent. It varies 
in thickness from 3 to 9 feet, though in some instances several 
layers come together, and then it is 20 and even 30 feet thick ; but 
these layers are interrupted by frequent dislocations, which raise 
the coal-seam towards the surface. These fissures, which divide 
the coalfield into insulated masses, are filled with clay, so that an 
accumulation of water takes place, which must be pumped up._ 

There are three] immense coalfields in England. The first lies 
north of the Trent, and occupies an area of 360 square miles ; and 
although the quantity of coal annually raised in Northumberland 
and Durham amounts to a million and a half of tons, there is enough 



4 In 1841 there were 196^921 persons employed in the mines o 
Great Britain and Ireland. 



BRITISH COALFIELDS. 183 

to last 1000 years. London is chiefly supplied from it. The 
second or central coalfield, which includes Leicester, Worcester, 
Stafford, and Shropshire, has an area of 1495 square miles, and 
supplies the manufactories round it, and the midland counties 
south and east of Derbyshire. The third or western coalfield 
includes South Wales, Gloucestershire, and Somersetshire. The 
coalfield of South Wales alone is 100 miles long, and 18 or 
20 broad. The Workington and Whitehaven coal-mines go a 
mile under the sea ; several shafts in the latter are 100 fathoms 
deep ; and it is one of the finest in England for extent and thick- 
ness of strata, some of the seams being nine feet thick. 

The Scotch coal-measures occupy the great central low-land of 
Scotland, lying between the southern high lands and the Highland 
mountains ; the whole of that rude tract is occupied by them, be- 
sides which there are other coalfields of less extent. Coal has 
been found in seventeen counties in Ireland, but the island con- 
tains only four principal coal districts — Leinster, Munster, Con- 
naught, and Ulster. Thus, there is coal enough in the British 
islands to last some thousands of years ; and were it exhausted, 
our friends across the Atlantic have enough to supply the world 
for ages uncountable. Moreover, if science continues to advance 
at the rate it has lately done, a substitute for coal will probably be 
discovered before our own mines are worked out.^ 

5 In the year 1829 the value of the mineral produce of Europe, in- 
cluding Asiatic Russia, but exclusive of manganese, amounted to — 

Gold and Silver £1,943,000 - 

Other metals 28,519,000 

Salts . 7,640,000 

Combustibles . . . . . . 18,050,000 

Total £56,148,000 

England contributed more than half this amount, namely, — 

Silver £ 28,500 

Copper 1,369,000 

Iron ........ 11,292,'000 

Lead '760,000 

Tin 536,000 

Salts 756.250 

Vitriol . 33^600 

Alum 33,000 

Coal 13,000,000 

Total . . . £28,716,750 

— nearly £29,000,000 sterling. — John Taylor, Esq., on the Cornish 
Mines. 

At present there are 34,000,000 of tons of coals consumed in Great 
Britain annually, besides the quantity exported to our colonies and to 



184 



PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



The carboniferous strata are enormously developed in the States 
of North America. The Appalachian coalfield extends, without 
interruption, 720 miles, with a maximum breadth of 280 miles, 

foreign countries^ amounting to nearly 2,000,000 of tons. 8,000,000 of 
tons are consumed in our iron-foundries alone. Between 500,000 and 
600,000 tons are used in making gas. 

The iron made in Britain in 1844 amounted to 1,400,000 tons. Iron 
is now applied to many uses instead of timber, especially in ship-build- 
ing: between the years 1830 and 1847, 150 iron vessels were launched 
in Britain. 25 of the steamships of the East India Company are of iron. 

The produce of our copper-mines has increased threefold within the 
last 60 years. The quantity of tin has also increased from our own 
mines, and also from the extensive importation of that metal from Banca, 
where the country yielding stream-tin extends from 7° N. lat. to 3° S. 
lat. The yearly produce amounts to 300 tons of pure metal. — " Progress 
of the Nation, in its Social and Commercial Relations, since the begin- 
ning of the Nineteenth Century," by G. R. Porter, Esq., 2d edition. 

In France there are 62 coal-mines, which yielded 3,410,200 tons in 
1841, and in 1838 the 12 iron districts in that country yielded to the 
value of 4,975,424^. 

The British coal and metal imported into France amounted to 1,222,- 
228?.-— Progress of the Nation. 

Belgium is next to Britain as a European coal country. In Britain 
the coalfields occupy one-twentieth part of the area of the country — in 
Belgium one twenty-second part — in France one two hundred and tenth 
part of its area. 

The qiiantity of coal raised in one year is, according to '^ The Statistics 
of Germany,^ by R. Valpy, Esq.— ■ 

In Britain .... 347,000,000 tons 
Belgium .... 4,000,000 
France .... 3.783,000 
Germany . . . . 3^000,000 

[The following table exhibits the quantity and value of coal produced, 
in the six principal coal countries in the world, in the year 1845: — • 



Order 

in 
1845. 


Countries. 


Square 
miles of Coal 
formations. 


Tons of 

Fuel raised 

in the year 

1845. 


Relative 

parts of 

1000. 


Official estimated value at 
the places of production. 


United Stales 
Dollars. 


English 
Sterling. 


1 
2 
3 
4 
5 
6 


Great Britain 
Belgium 
United States 
France 

Prussian States 
Austrian States 


11,859 

518 

133,132 

1,719 

Not defined 

Do. 


31,500,000 
4,960,077 
4,400,000 
4,141,617 
3,500,000 
659,340 


642 
101 
89 
84 
70 
14 


$45738,000 
7,689,900 
6,650,000 
7,663,000 
4,122,945 
800,000 


i;9,450.000 

1.660,000 

1,:^73,963 

1,60.3,106 

856,370 

165,290 




Total 




49,I61,0;M 


1000 


72,663,845 


15,108,729 



The coal trade appears to be increasing in all parts of the world. 
_ There are no authentic data from which the increasing production of 
bituminous coal in the United States can be exactly deduced, but what 



NORTH AMERICAN COALFIELDS. 185 

from the northern border of Pennsylvania to near Huntsville, in 
Alabama, occupying an area of 68,000 square miles. It is inter- 
sected by three great navigable rivers — the Monogahela, the Alle- 
ghany, and the Ohio — which expose to view the seams of coal on 
their banks. The Pittsburgh seam, 10 feet thick, exposed on the 
banks of the Monogahela, extends, horizontally, 225 miles in length 
and 100 in breadth, and covers an area of 14,000 square miles, so 
that this seam of coal may be worked for ages almost on the sur- 
face, and in many places literally so. Indeed, the facihty is so 
great, that it is more profitable to convey the coal by water to New 
Orleans, 11 00 miles distant, than to cut down the trees with which 
the country is covered for fuel, and which may be had for the ex- 
pense of felling. The coal is bituminous, similar to the greater 
part of the British coal ; forty miles to the east, however, among 
the ridges of the Appalachian chain, there is an extensive outlying 
member of the great coalfield, w^hich yields anthracite, a species 
of coal which has the advantage of burning without smoke. 
In the western States, the Illinois coalfield, which occupies part 

we have show that it is very rapid. The production of anthracite may 
be said to be entirely confined to the State of Pennsylvania^ which pos- 
sesses a numerous and interesting group of coal basins, of various sizes 
and characters. 

In the year 1820, the anthracite coal trade commenced with 365 tons j 
in 1827 it reached 48,047 tons; in 1837, 881,026 tons, and advanced to 
3,000,000 tons in 1847. 

The following table exhibits the production of smelted or manufac- 
tured iron in different countries in the year 1845 : — 
1. Great Britain , . . . 



2. United States . 

3. France .... 

4. Russia .... 

5. ZoUverein, or Prussian States 



6. Austria 

7. Belgium .... 

8. Sweden .... 

9. Spain (in 1841) 

10. All other European countries 



502,000 
448,000 
400.000 
300^000 
190,000 
150,000 
145,000 
26,000 
50,000 



4,411,000 
The rapid increase in the number of railroads and locomotive engines, 
and the number of steam vessels employed in commerce, augments the 
demand, proportionally, for iron and fuel. 

At the commencement of 1847, the length of railroad completed and 
partly finished in the principal countries of Europe and America was 
20,000 miles, only a few thousand miles less than the entire circumfer- 
ence of the globe.] ^ 

* " Statistics of Coal." By Richard Cowling Taylor, riiiladclphia, J848< 

16* 



186 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

of Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky, is as large as England, and 
consists of horizontal strata, with numerous seams of rich bitu- 
minous coal. There is a vast coalfield also in Michigan. Large 
areas in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia abound in coal. Iron 
is worked in many parts of the States, from Connecticut to South 
Carolina.^ ^ 

The tropical regions of the globe have been so little explored 
that no idea can be formed of the quantity of coal or iron they 
contain; but as iron is so universal, it is probable that coal is not 
wanting. It is found in Formosa. Both abound in Borneo, and 
in various parts of tropical Africa and America. There is com- 
paratively so little land in the southern temperate zone, that the 
mineral produce must be more limited than in the northern, yet 
New Holland, Van Diemen's Land, and New Zealand are rich 
in coal and iron. 

Arsenic, used in the arts and manufactures, is generally found 
combined with other metals in many countries as well as our 
own. Manganese, zinc, bismuth, and antimony are raised to a 
considerable amount. As the qualities of the greater part of the 
more rare metals are little known, they have hitherto been in- 
teresting chiefly to the mineralogist. 

The mines of rock-salt in Cheshire seem to be inexhaustible. 
Enormous deposits of salt extend 600 miles on each side of the 
Carpathian mountains, and throughout wide districts in Austria, 
Galiicia, and Spain. It would not be easy to enumerate the 
places in Asia where rock-salt has been found. Armenia, Syria, 
and extensive tracts in the Punjab abound in it, also China and 
the Ural district; and the Andes contain vast deposits of rock-salt, 
some at great heights. 

Volcanic countries in both continents yield sulphur. Sicily, 
where it is found in the tertiary marine strata, unconnected with 
the volcanic district, is the magazine which supplies the greater 
part of the manufactures of Europe. It is often found beautifully 
crystallized. Asphalt, nitre, alum, and naphtha are found in 
various parts of Europe and Asia, and natron is procured from 
small lakes in an oasis on the west of the Valley of the Nile. 

The diffusion of precious stones is very limited. Diamonds 
are mostly found in a soil of sand and gravel, and in the beds of 
rivers. Brazil furnishes most of the diamonds in commerce ; 
they are the produce of tracts on each side of the Sierra Espen- 
ha^o, and of a district watered by some of the affluents of the Rio 
San Francesco. During the century ending in 1822, diamonds 
were collected in Brazil to the value of three millions sterhng, 
one of which weighed 138^ carats. The celebrated mines of 

^ Sir Charles Lyell's "Travels in the United States of North America." 



DIFFUSION OF GEMS. 187 

Golconda have produced many splendid diamonds ; they are aJso 
found in Borneo, which produced one weighing 807 carats, 
valued at 269,378/. The eastern parts of the Thian-Tchan, on 
the great platform of Asia, and a wide district of the Ural Moun- 
tains, yield diamonds. 

The ruby and sapphire have the same crystalline form, and are 
nearly allied to corundum ; both are found in Ceylon, in the gravel 
of streams. The rubies at Gharan, on the verge of the riv^er 
Oxus, are found imbedded in limestone. The gravel of rivulets 
in the Birman empire contains the oriental, star, and opalescent 
rubies. The spinelle also occurs in that country in a district five 
days' journey from Ava. The Hungarian rubies are of inferior 
value. The blue, green, yellow, and white sapphires are the 
produce of the Birman empire, and the spinelle is not uncommon 
in Brazil. 

The finest emeralds come from veins of clay-slate in the valley 
of Musa, in New Grenada. Beryls are found in Brazil, and in 
the old mines in Mount Zabarah, in Upper Egypt. Those of 
Hungary and of the Heubach Valley, near Saltzburg, are very 
inferior in colour and quality. 

Hungary and Bohemia yield the finest opals ; the most esteemed 
are opaque, of a pale brown, and shine with the most brilliant 
iridescence ; some are white, transparent, or semi-transparent, and 
radiant in colours : the precious opal is found in Hungary and in 
Mexico. The most beautiful garnets come from Bohemia and 
Hungary; they are found in the Hartz mountains, Ceylon, and 
many other locahties. The turquoise is a Persian gem, and sup- 
posed to be the fossilized enamel of the tooth of a fossil mastodon ; 
it is also found in Tibet and in the Belat-Tagh in Badakshan, 
which is the country of the lapis lazuli, mined by heating the 
rock, and then throwing cold water upon it. This beautiful 
mineral is also found in several places of the Hindoo Coosh, in 
the hills of Istalif north of Cabool, in Tibet, and in the Baikal 
mountains in Siberia. 

The cat's-eye is peculiar to Ceylon ; the king of Kandy had 
one two inches broad. Topaz, beryl, and amethyst are of very 
common occurrence, especially in Brazil, Siberia, and other places. 
They are little valued, and scarcely accounted gems. Agates are 
so beautiful on the table-land of Tibet, and in some parts of the 
desert of the Great Gobi, that they form a considerable article of 
commerce in China; and some are brought to Rome, where they 
are cut into cameos and intaglios. But the greater part of the 
agates, cornelians, and chalcedonies used in Europe are found in 
the trap-rocks of Oberstein, in the Palatinate. 

Thus, by her unseen ministers, electricity and reciprocal action, 
the great artificer Nature has adorned the depths of the earth and 



188 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

the heart of the mountains with her most admirable works, filling 
the veins with metals, and building the atoms of matter, with the 
most elegant and delicate symmetry, into innumerable crystaUine 
forms of inimitable grace and beauty. The calm and still exterior 
of the earth gives no indication of the activity that prevails in its 
bosom, where treasures are preparing to enrich future generations 
of man. Gold will still be sought for in the deep mine, and the 
diamond will be gathered among the debris of the mountains, 
while time endures. 



CFIAPTER XVI. 



The Ocean — its Size, Colour, Pressure, and Saltness — Tides-— Waves — 
their Height and Force — Currents — their Effect on Voyages — Tem- 
perature — The Stratum of Constant Temperature — Line of Maximum 
Temperature — North and South Polar Ice — Inland Seas. 

The ocean, which fills a deep cavity in the globe, and covers 
three-fourths of its surface, is so unequally distributed that there 
is three times more land in the northern than in the southern 
hemisphere. The torrid zone is chiefly occupied by sea, and 
only one twenty-seventh part of the land on one side of the earth 
has land opposite to it on the other. The form assumed by this 
immense mass of water is that of a spheroid, flattened at the poles ; 
and as its mean level is nearly the same, for anything we know 
to the contrary, it serves as a base to which all heights of land are 
referred. 

The bed of the ocean, like that of the land, of which it is the 
continuation, is diversified by plains and mountains, table-lands 
and valleys, sometimes barren, sometimes covered with marine 
vegetation, and teeming with hfe. Now it sinks into depths 
which the sounding-line has never fathomed, now it appears in 
chains of islands, or rises near to the surface in hidden reefs and 
shoals, perilous to the mariner. Springs of fresh water rise from 
the bottom, volcanos eject their lavas and scoriae, and earthquakes 
trouble the deep waters. 

The ocean is continually receiving the spoils of the land, and 
from that cause would constantly be decreasing in depth, and, 
as the quantity of water is always the same, its superficial extent 
would increase. There are, however, counteracting causes to 
check this tendency : the secular elevation of the land over exten- 
sive tracts in many parts of the world is one of the most important. 
Volcanos, coral islands, and barrier-reefs show that great changes 



TI-IE OCEAN : ITS SIZE. 189 

of level are constantly taking place in the bed of the ocean itself — 
that symmetrical bands of subsidence and elevation extend alter- 
nately over an area equal to a hemisphere, from which it may be 
concluded that the balance is always maintained between the sea 
and land, although the distribution may vary in the lapse of time. 

The Pacific, or Great Ocean, exceeds in superficies all the dry 
land on the globe. It has an area of 50 milhons of square miles ; 
including the Indian Ocean, its area is nearly 70 millions ; and 
its breadth from Peru to the coast of Africa is 16,000 miles. Its 
length is less than the Atlantic, as it only communicates with the 
Arctic Ocean by Behring's Straits, whereas the Atlantic, as far as 
we know, stretches from pole to pole. 

The continent of Australia occupies a comparatively small por- 
tion of the Pacific, while innumerable islands stud its surface 
many degrees on either side of the equator, of which a great 
number are volcanic, showing that its bed has been, and indeed 
actually is, the theatre of violent igneous eruptions. So great is 
its depth, that a line five miles long has not reached the bottom 
in many places ; yet as the whole mass of the ocean counts for 
little in the total amount of terrestrial gravitation, its mean depth 
is but a small fraction of the radius of the globe. 

The bed of the Atlantic is a long deep valley, with few moun- 
tains, or at least but few that raise their summits as islands above 
its surface. Its greatest breadth, including the Gulf of Mexico, 
is 5000 miles, and its superficial extent is about 25 milh'ons of 
square miles. This sea is exceedingly deep : in 27° 26' S. lati- 
tude and 17° 29' W. longitude Sir James Ross found the depth 
to be 14,550 feet ; about 450 miles west from the Cape of Good 
Hope it was 16,062 feet, or 332 feet more than the height of 
Mont Blanc ; and 900 miles west from St. Helena a line of 27,600 
feet did not reach the bottom, a depth which is equal to the height 
of some of the most elevated peaks of the Himalaya ; but there is 
reason to believe that many parts of the ocean are still deeper. 
A great part of the German Ocean is only 93 feet deep, though 
on the Norwegian side, where the coast is bold, the depth is 190 
fathoms. 

Immense sandbanks often project from the land, which rise 
from great depths to within a few fathoms of the surface. 'Of 
these, the AghuUas Banks, off the Cape of Good Hope, are 
amongst the most remarkable ; those of Newfoundland are still 
greater in extent: they consist of a double sandbank, which is 
supposed to reach to the north of Scotland. The Dogger Bank, 
in the North Sea, and many others, are well known. According 
to Mr. Stevenson, one-fifth of the German Ocean is occupied by 
sandbanks, whose average height is 78 feet, an area equal to about 
one-third of Great Britain. Currents are sometimes deflected from 



190 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

their course by sandbanks whose tops do not come within 50 or 
even 100 feet of the surface. Some on the coast of Norway are 
surrounded by such deep water that they must be submarine 
table-lands. All are the resort offish. 

The pressure at the great depths is enormous. In the Arctic 
Ocean, where the specific gravity of the water is lessened, on 
account of the greater proportion of fresh water produced by the 
melting of the ice, the pressure at the depth of a mile and a quarter 
is 2809 pounds on a square inch of surface ; this w^as confirmed 
by Captain Scoresby, who says, in his "Arctic Voyages," that 
the wood of a boat suddenly dragged to a great depth by a whale 
was found, when drawn up, so saturated with water forced into 
its pores, that it sank in water like a stone for a year afterwards. 
Even sea-water is reduced in bulk from 20 to 19 sohd inches at 
the depth of 20 miles. The compression that a whale can endure 
is wonderful. Many species of fish are capable of sustaining 
great pressure, as well as sudden changes of pressure. Divers in 
the pearl-fisheries exert great muscular strength, but man cannot 
bear the increased pressure at great depths, because his lungs are 
full of air, nor can he endure the diminution of it at great altitudes 
above the earth. 

The depth to which the sun's light penetrates the ocean 
depends upon the transparency of the water, and cannot be less 
than twice the depth to which a person can see from the surface. 
In parts of the Arctic Ocean shells are distinctly seen at the 
depth of 80 fathoms ; and among the West India islands, in 80 
fathoms of water, the bed of the sea is as clear as if seen in air ; 
shells, corals, and sea-weeds of every hue display the tints of the 
rainbow. 

The purest spring is not more limpid than the water of the 
ocean ; it absorbs all the prismatic colours, except that of ultra- 
marine, which, being reflected in every direction, imparts a hue 
approaching the azure of the sky. The colour of the sea varies 
with every gleam of sunshine or passing cloud, although its true 
tint is always the same when seen sheltered from atmospheric 
influence. The reflection of a boat on the shady side is often of 
the clearest blue, while the surface of the water exposed to the 
suri is bright as burnished gold. The waters of the ocean also 
derive their colour from animalcules of the infusorial kind, vege- 
table substances, and minute particles of matter. It is white 
in the Gulf of Guinea, black round the Maldives ; off' California 
the Vermilion Sea is so called on account of the red colour of the 
infusoria it contains; the same red colour was observed by 
Magellan near the mouth of the river Plate. The Persian Gulf 
is called the Green Sea by eastern geographers, and there is a 
trail of green water off' the Arabian coast so distinct that a ship 



THE OCEAN: ITS SALTNESS. 191 

has been seen in green and blue water at the same time. Rapid 
transitions take place in the Arctic Sea, from ultramarine to oJive- 
green, from purity to opacity. These appearances are not delu- 
sive, but constant as to place and colour ; the green is produced 
by myriads of minute insects, which devour one another and are 
a prey to the whale. The colour of clearer shallow water depends 
upon that of its bed ; over chalk or white-sand it is apple-green, 
over yellow sand dark-green, brown or black over dark ground, 
and grey over mud. 

The sea is supposed to have acquired its saline principle when 
the globe was in the act of subsiding from a gaseous state. The 
density of sea-water depends upon the quantity of saline matter 
it contains : the proportion is generally a little above 3 per cent., 
though it varies in different places ; the ocean contains more salt 
in the southern than in the northern hemisphere, the Atlantic 
more than the Pacific. The greatest proportion of salt in the 
Pacific is in the parallels of 22° N. lat. and 17° S. lat. ; near the 
equator it is less, and in the Polar Seas it is least, from the melting 
of the ice. The saltness varies with the seasons in these regions, 
and the fresh water, being Hghtest, is uppermost. Rain makes 
the surface of the sea fresher than the interior parts, and the 
influx of rivers renders the ocean less salt at their estuaries ; the 
Atlantic is brackish 300 miles from the mouth of the Amazons. 
Deep seas are more sahne than those that are shallow, and inland 
seas communicating with the ocean are less salt, from the rivers 
that floAv into them; to this, however, the Mediterranean is an 
exception, occasioned by the great evaporation, and the influx of 
salt currents from the Atlantic. The water in the Straits of Gib- 
raltar at the depth of 670 fathoms is four times as salt as that at 
the surface. 

Fresh water freezes at the temperature of 32° of Fahrenheit ; 
the point of congelation of salt water is much lower. As the 
specific gravity of the water of the Greenland Sea is about 1-02664, 
it does not freeze till its temperature is reduced to 28^° of Fah- 
renheit, so that the saline principle preserves the sea in a liquid 
state to a much higher latitude than if it had been fresh, while it 
is better suited for navigation by its greater buoyancy. The health- 
fulness of the sea is ascribed to the mixing of the water by tides and 
currents which prevents the accumulation of putrescent matter. 

Besides its saline ingredients, the sea contains bromine and 
iodine in very minute quantities, and, no doubt, portions of other 
substances too small to be detected by chemical analysis, since it 
has constantly received the debris of the land and all its organized 
matter. 

Raised by the moon and modified by the sun, the area of the 
ocean is elevated into great tidal waves which keep time with 



192 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

the attractions of these lumhiaries at each return to the upper 
and lower meridian. The water under the moon is drawn from 
the earth by her attraction, at the same time that she draws the 
earth from the water diametrically opposite to her, in both cases 
producing a tide of nearly equal height. The height to which 
the tides rise depends upon the relative positions of the sun and 
moon, upon their decHnation and distance from the earth, but 
much more upon local circumstances. The spring-tides happen 
at new and full moon, consequently, twice in a month, because in 
both cases the sun and moon are in the same meridian ; for when 
the moon is new they are in conjunction, and when she is full 
they are in opposition, and in each of these positions their 
attraction is combined to raise the water to its greatest height ; 
while, on the contrary, the neap or lowest tides happen when the 
moon is in quadrature, or 90° distant from the sun, for then they 
counteract each other's attraction to a certain degree. 

The tides ordinarily happen twice in 24 hours, because the 
rotation of the globe brings the same point of the ocean twice 
under the meridian of the moon ; but peculiar local circumstances 
sometimes affect the tides, so as to produce only one tide in 24 
hours, while, on the other hand, there have been known three 
and even four tides in the same space of time. 

As the earth revolves, a succession of tides follow one another, 
and are diffused over the Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic Oceans, 
giving birth to the tides which wash the shores of the vast con- 
tinents and islands which rise above their surfaces ; but in what 
manner those marginal tides branch off from the parent wave, 
science has not yet determined : we know only their course along 
each shore, but are unable to connect these curves with the great 
ridge of the tidal wave. 

In the Atlantic the marginal wave travels towards the north, 
and impinges upon' the coasts of North America and of Europe. 
In the Indian Ocean it also pursues a northerly course, and 
finally w^ashes the shores of Hindostan, the Bay of Bengal, and 
the Arabian Gulf: while in the Pacific, on the contrary, the 
waves diverge from the equator towards the poles — but in all 
they partake also of the westerly course of the moon. 

Although such are the directions in which the tides unques- 
tionably proceed along the shores of those seas, yet observations 
at islands in the open sea and towards the centres of the oceans 
contradict the idea of corresponding progressive waves throughout 
the entire area of those seas. 

Upon the coasts of Britain and New^ Brunswick the tides are 
high, from the local circumstances of the coast and bottom of the 
sea ; while in the centre of the ocean, where they are due to the 
action of the sun and moon only, they are remarkably small. 



TIDES. 193 

The spring-tides rise more than 40 feet at Bristol, and in the Bay 
of Fundy, in Nova Scotia, they rise upwards of 50 feet ; the 
general height in the North Atlantic is 10 or 12 feet, but in the 
open and deep sea they are less ; and at St. Helena they are not 
more than 3 feet, whilst among the islands in the Pacific they are 
scarcely perceptible. 

The mean height of the tides will be increased by a very small 
quantity for ages to come, in consequence of the decrease in the 
mean distance of the moon from the earth ; the contrary effect 
will take place after that period has elapsed, and the moon's 
mean distance begins to increase again, which it will continue to 
do for many ages. Thus, the mean distance of the moon, and 
the consequent minute increase in the height of the tides, will 
oscillate between fixed limits for ever.'' 

The tidal wave extends to the bottom of the ocean, and moves 
uniformly and with great speed in very deep water, variably and 
slow in shallow Avater; the time of propagation depends on the 
depth of the water as well as on the nature and form of the 
shores. Its velocity varies inversely as the square of the depth 
— a law which theoretically affords the means of ascertaining the 
proportionate depth of the sea in different parts ; it is one of the 
great constants of nature, and is to fluids what the pendulum is 
to solids — a connecting link between time and force. 

The great oceanic wave that twice a-day brings the tides to 
our shores, has occupied a day and a half in travelling from the 
place where it was generated. The wave first impinges on the 
west coast of Ireland and England, and then passes round the 
north of Scotland, up the North Sea, and enters the Thames, 
having made the tour of Great Britain in about 18 hours. 

At the equator the tide-wave follows the moon at the rate of 
1000 miles an hoar ; it moves very slowly in the northern seas 
on account of the shallowness of the water ; but the tides are so 
retarded by the form of the coasts and irregularities of the bottom 
of the sea, that a tide is sometimes impeded by an obstacle till a 
second tide reaches the same point by a different course, and the 
water rises to double the height it would otherwise have attained. 
A complete extinction of the tide takes place when a high-water 
interferes in the same manner with a low-water, as in the centre 
of the German Ocean — a circumstance predicted by theory, and 
confirmed by Captain Hewett, who was not aware that such an 
interference existed. When two unequal tides of contrary phases 
meet, the greater overpowers the lesser, and the resulting height 
is equal to their difference ; such varieties occur chiefly in chan- 

■^ For the reason of this secular variation in the Moon's distance, 
see page 42 of "The Connection of the Physical Sciences.'' 
17 



194 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

nels among islands and at the estuaries of rivers. When the tide 
flows suddenly up a river encumbered with shoals, it checks the 
descent of the stream ; the water spreads over the sands, and a 
high crested wave, called a bore, is driven with force up the 
channel. This occurs in the Ganges ; in the Amazon, at the 
equinoxes, where, during three successive days, five of these 
destructive waves, from 12 to 15 feet high, follow one another up 
that river daily ; and in a lesser degree in some of our own 
rivers. 

There may be some small flow of stream with the oceanic 
tide ; but that does not necessarily follow, since the tide in the 
open ocean is merely an alternate rise and fall of the surface : so 
that the wave, not the stream, follows the moon. A bird resting 
on the sea is not carried forward as the waves rise and fall ; 
indeed, if so heavy a body as water were to move at the rate of 
1000 miles in an hour, it would cause universal destruction, since 
in the most violent hurricanes the velocity of the wind hardly 
exceeds 100 miles an hour. 

During the passage of the great tidal wave in deep water, the 
particles of the fluid glide for the moment over each other into a 
new arrangement, and then retire to their places ; but this motion is 
extremely limited and momentary. Over shallows, however, and 
near the land, both the water and the waves advance during the 
flow of the tide, and roll on the beach.^ 

The friction of the wind combines with the tides in agitating 
the surface of the ocean, and, according to the theory of undula- 
tions, each produces its effect independently of the other ; wind, 
however, not only raises waves, but causes a transfer of super- 
ficial water also. Attraction between the particles of air and 
water, as well as the pressure of the atmosphere, brings its lower 
stratum into adhesive contact with the surface of the sea. If the 
motion of the wind be parallel to the surface, there will still be 
friction, but the water will be smooth as a mirror ; but if it be 
inclined, in however small a degree, a ripple will appear. The 
friction raises a minute wave, whose elevation protects the water 
beyond it from the wind, which consequently impinges on the 
surface at a small distance beyond ; thus, each impulse, com- 
bining with the other, produces an undulation which continually 
advances. 

Those beautiful silvery streaks on the surface of a tranquil sea 
called cat's-paws by sailors, are owing to a partial deviation o^ 

^ Every undulating motion consists of two distinct things — an ad- 
vancing form and a molecular movement. The motion of each par- 
ticle is in an ellipse lying wholly in a vertical plane, so that, after the 
momentary disturbance during the passage of the wave, they return to 
their places again. — '• Theory of Waves/^ by J. Scott Russell; Esq. 



WAVES. 195 

the wind from a horizontal direction. The resistance of the water 
increases with the strength and inclination of the wind. The 
agitation at first extends little below the surface, but in long-con- 
tinued gales even the deep water is troubled : the billows rise 
higher and higher, and, as the surface of the sea is driven before 
the wind, their " monstrous heads," impelled beyond the perpen- 
dicular, fall in wreaths of foam. Sometimes several waves over- 
take one another, and form a sublime and awful sea. The high- 
est waves known are those which occur during a north-west gale 
off the Cape of Good Hope, aptly called by the ancient Portu- 
guese navigators the Cape of Storms : Cape Horn also seems to 
be the abode of the tempest. The sublimity of the scene, united 
to the threatened danger, naturally leads to an over-estimate of 
the magnitude of the waves, which appear to rise mountain-high, 
as they are proverbially said to do : there is, however, reason to 
doubt if the highest waves off the Cape of Good Hope exceed 40 
feet from the hollow trough to the summit. The waves are short 
and abrupt in small shallow seas, and on that account are more 
dangerous than the long rolling billows of the wide ocean. 

" The sea-shore after a storm presents a scene of infinite gran- 
deur. It exhibits the expenditure of gigantic force, which im- 
presses the mind with the presence of elemental power as sub- 
lime as the water-fall or the thunder. Long before the waves 
reach the shore they may be said to feel the bottom as the water 
becomes shallower, for they increase in height, but diminish in 
length. Finally, the waves becomes higher, more pointed, 
assumes a form of unstable equilibrium, totters, becomes crested 
with foam, breaks with great violence, and continuing to break, 
is gradually lessened in bulk till it ends in a fringed margin. "^ 

The waves raised by the wind are altogether independent of 
the tidal waves ; each maintains its undisturbed course ; and as 
the inequahties of the coasts reflect them in all directions, they 
modify those they encounter and offer new resistance to the wind, 
so that there may be three or four systems or series of co-existing 
waves, all going in different directions, while the individual waves 
of each maintain their parallelism. 

The undulation called a ground-swell, occasioned by the con- 
tinuance of a heavy gale, is totally different from the tossing of 
the billows, which is confined to the area vexed by the wind ; 
whereas the ground-swell is rapidly transmitted through the 
ocean to regions far beyond the direct influence of the gale that 
raised ii, and it continues to heave the smooth and glassy sur- 
face of the deep long after the wind and the billows are at rest. 
In the South Pacific, billows which must have travelled 1000 

^ J. Scott Russelj Esq., on Waves. 



196 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

miles against the trade-wind from the seat of the storm, expend 
their fury on the lee side of the many coral islands which bedeck 
that sunny sea.^*^ A swell sometimes comes from a quarter in 
direct opposition to the wind, and occasionally from various 
points of the compass at the same time, producing a vast commo- 
tion even in a dead calm, without ruffling the surf?ace. They are 
the heralds that point out to the mariner the distant region where 
the tempest has howled, and not unfrequently they are the har- 
bingers of its approach. At the margin of the polar ice, in addi- 
tion to other dangers, there is generally a swell which would be 
very formidable to the mariner in thick weather, did not the loud 
grinding noise of the ice warn him. of his approach. 
. Heavy swells are propagated through the ocean till they gm- 
dually subside from the friction of the water, or till the undula- 
tion is checked by the resistance of land, when they roll in surf 
to the shore, or dash in spray and foam over the rocks. The rol- 
lers at the Cape de Verde Islands are seen at a great distance 
approaching like mountains. When a gale is added to a ground- 
swell the commotion is great and the force of the surge tremen- 
dous, tossing huge masses of rock and shaking the chffs to their 
foundations. During heavy gales on the coast of Madras the surf 
breaks in nine fathoms water at the distance of four and even four 
and a half miles from the shore. The violence of the tempest is 
sometimes so intense as to quell the billows and scatter its surface 
in a heavy shower called by sailors spoon-drift. On such occa- 
sions saline particles have impregnated the air to the distance of 
50 miles inland. 

The force of the waves in gales of wind is tremendous ; from 
experiments made by Mr. Stevenson, civil engineer, on the west 
coast of Scotland, exposed to the whole fury of the Atlantic, it 
appears that the average pressure of the waves during the sum- 
mer months was equal to 611 pounds weight on a square foot of 
surface, while in winter it was 2086 pounds, or three times as 
great. During the storm that took place on the 9th of March, 
1845, it amounted to 6083 pounds. Now, as the pressure of a 
wave 20 feet high not in motion is only about half a ton on a 
square foot, it shows how much of their force waves owe to their 
velocity. The rolling breakers on the cliffs on the west coast of 
Ireland are magnificent : Lord Adair measured some that were 
50 and even 150 feet high. 

In the Isle of Man, a block which weighed about 10 stone was 
lifted from its place and carried inland during a north-westerly 
gale ; and in the Hebrides a block of 42 tons weight was moved 
several feet by the force of the waves. The Bell Rock light- 

^0 Beechy's Voyage to the Pacific. 



CURRENTS. 197 

house in the German Ocean, though 112 feet high, is literally 
buried in foam and spray to the very top during ground-swells 
when there is no wind. On the 20th of November," 1827, the 
spray rose 117 feet, so that the pressure was computed by Mr. 
Stevenson to be nearly three tons on a square foot. 

The effect of a gale descends to a comparatively small distance 
below the surface ; the sea is probably tranquil at the depth of 
200 or 800 feet ; where it not so, the water would be turbid and 
shellfish would be destroyed. Anything that diminishes the fric- 
tion of the wind smoothes the surface of the sea — for example, 
oil or a small stream of packed ice, which suppresses even a swell. 
When the air is moist, its attraction for water is diminished, and 
consequently so is the friction; hence the sea is not so rough in 
rainy as in dry weather. 

Currents of various extent, magnitude, and velocity disturb 
the tranquillity of the ocean ; some of them depend upon circum- 
stances permanent as the globe itself, others on ever-varying 
causes. Constant currents are produced by the combined action 
of the rotation of the earth, the heat of the sun, and the trade- 
winds ; periodical currents are occasioned by tides, monsoons, and 
other long-continued winds ; temporary currents arise from the 
tides, melting ice, and from every gale of some duration. A per- 
petual circulation is kept up in the waters of the main by these 
vast marine streams ; they are sometimes superficial and some- 
times submarine, according as their density is greater or less than 
that of the surrounding sea. 

The exchange of water between the poles and the equator 
affects the great currents of the ocean. Although these depend 
upon the same causes as the trade-winds, they differ essentially 
in this respect — that whereas the atmosphere is heated from 
below by its contact with the earth, and transmits the heat to the 
strata above, the sea is heated at its surface by the direct rays of 
the sun, which diminish the specific gravity of the upper strata, 
especially between the tropics, and also occasion strong and rapid 
evaporation, both of which causes disturb the equilibrium of the 
ocean. The rotation of the earth also gives the water a tendency 
to take an oblique direction in its flow towards the equatorial 
regions, as, in order to restore the equilibrium, deranged by so 
many circumstances, great streams perpetually descend from 
either pole. When these currents leave the poles they flow 
towards the equator ; but, before proceeding far, their motion is 
deflected by the diurnal rotation of the earth. At the poles they 
have no rotatory motion ; and although they gain it more and 
more in their progress to the equator, which revolves at the rate 
of 1000 miles an hour, they arrive at the tropics before they have 
acquired the same velocity of rotation with the intertropical 
17* 



198 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

ocean. On that account they are left behind, and consequently 
seem to flow in a direction contrary to the diurnal rotation of the 
earth. For that reason the whole surface of the ocean, for 30 
degrees on each side of the equator, has an apparent tendency 
from east to west, which produces all the effects of a great current 
or stream flowing in that direction. The trade-winds, which blow 
constantly in one direction, combine to give this current a mean 
velocity of 10 or 11 miles in 24 hours. 

It has been supposed that the primary currents, as well as 
those derived from them, are subject to periodical variations of 
intensity occasioned by the melting of the ice at each pole alter- 
nately. 

In consequence of the uninterrupted expanse of ocean in the 
southern hemisphere, the prevalence of westerly winds, and the 
tendency of the polar water towards the equator, a great oceanic 
current is originated in the Antarctic Sea. Driven by the pre- 
vailing winds, the waters take an easterly direction inclining to 
the northward, and one part sets upon the American coast, where 
it is divided. A small part doubles Cape Horn, while the main 
cold stream flows down the American shore ; then turning sud- 
denly to the west, it loses itself ia the great equatorial current of 
the Pacific, which crosses that ocean between the parallels of 26° 
S. and 24° N. in a vast stream nearly 8500 miles broad. In the 
north this stream is interrupted by the coast of China, the East- 
ern Peninsula, and the islands of the Indian Archipelago ; but a 
part forces its way between the islands, and joins the great equa- 
torial current of the Indian Ocean, Avhich, impelled by the S.E. 
trade-wind, maintains a westerly course between the lOlh and 
20th parallels of south latitude ; as it approaches the Island of 
Madagascar the stream is divided ; one part runs to the north- 
west, bends round the northern end of Madagascar, flows through 
the Mosambique Channel, and, being joined by the other branch, 
it doubles the Cape of Good Hope outside of the Agullhas Bank, 
and, under the name of the South Atlantic Current, it runs along 
the west coast of Africa to the parallel of St. Helena. There it 
is deflected by the coast of Guinea, and forms the Great Atlantic 
Equatorial Current, which flows westward and divides upon Cape 
St. Roque in Brazil. One branch of the stream setting south- 
ward along the continent of South America, becomes insensible 
before it reaches the Straits of Magellan ; but an offset from it 
stretches directly across the Atlantic to the Cape of Good Hope, 
having made the circuit of the South Atlantic Ocean, and keeping 
150 miles outside of the Cape or Agullhas current, which runs 
in the opposite direction, it pursues its course into the Indian 
Ocean, where traces of it are met with 2000 miles from the Cape. 

The principal branch of the great equatorial current takes a 



CURRENTS. 199 

northerly course from off Cape St. Roque, and rushes along the 
coast of Brazil with such force and depth that it suffers only a tem- 
porary deflection by the powerful streams of the river Amazon and 
of the Ormoco. Though much weakened in passing among the 
West Indian islands, it acquires new strength in the Caribbean 
Sea. From thence, after sweeping round the Gulf of Mexico 
with the high temperature of 88° 52' of Fahrenheit, it flows 
through the Straits of Florida, and along the North American 
coast to Newfoundland under the' name of the Gulf-stream : it is 
there deflected eastward by the form of the land and the preva- 
lent wind, and after passing Newfoundland by a current from 
Baffin's Bay. From the Azores it bends southward, and aided 
by the north-east trade rejoins the equatorial current, having 
made a circuit of 3800 miles with various velocity, leaving a 
vast loop or space of water nearly stagnant in its centre, which is 
thickly covered with sea-weed. The bodies of men, animals, 
and plants of unknown appearance, brought to the Azores by 
this stream, suggested to Columbus the idea of land beyond the 
Western Ocean, and thus led to the discovery of America, The 
Gulf-stream is more salt, warmer, and of a deeper blue than the 
rest of the ocean, till it reaches Newfoundland, where it becomes 
turbid from the shallowness of that part of the sea. Its greatest 
velocity is 78 miles a-day soon after leaving the Florida Strait ; 
and its breadth increases with its distance from the strait until the 
warm water spreads over a large surface of the ocean. An im- 
portant branch leaves the current near Newfoundland, setting 
towards Britain and Norway ; which is again subdivided into 
many branches, whose origin is recognized by their greater 
warmth, even at the edge of perpetual ice in the Polar Ocean ; 
and in consequence of some of these branches the Spitzbergen 
Sea is 6° or 7° warmer at the depth of 200 fathoms than at its 
surface. Though the warmth of the Gulf-stream diminishes as 
it goes north. Lieutenant Murray says " that the quantity of heat 
which it spreads over the Atlantic in a winter's day would be 
sufficient to raise the whole atmosphere that covers France and 
Great Britain from the freezing point to summer heat ; and it 
really is the cause of the mildness and of the damp of Ireland and 
the south of England. 

These oceanic streams exceed all the rivers in the world in 
breadth and depth as well as length. The equatorial current in 
the Atlantic is 160 miles broad off the coast of Africa, and towards 
its mid-course across the Atlantic its width becomes nearly equal 
to the length of Great Britain : but as it then sends off a branch 
to the N.W., it is diminished to 200 miles before reaching the 
coast of Brazil. The depth of this great stream is unknown ; but 
the Brazilian branch must be very profound, since it is not de- 



200 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

fleeted by the river La Plata, which crosses it with so strong a 
current that its fresh muddy waters are perceptible 500 miles 
from its mouth. When currents pass over banks and. shoals, the 
colder water rises to the surface and gives warning of the danger. 

In summer, the great north polar current coming along the 
coasts of Greenland and Labrador, together with the current from 
Davis's Straits, brings icebergs to the margin of the Gulf-Stream. 
The difference between the temperatures of these two oceanic 
streams brought into contact is the cause of the dense fogs that 
brood over the banks of Newfoundland. The north polar current 
runs inside of the Gulf-Stream, along the coast of North America 
to Florida, and beyond it^-since it sends an under-current into the 
Caribbean Sea, Counter-currents on the surface are of such fre- 
quent occurrence that there is scarcely a strait joining two seas 
that does not furnish an example-^a current running in along one 
shore, and a counter-current running out along the other. One 
of the most remarkable occurs in the Atlantic : it begins off the 
coast of France, and, after sending a mass of water into the Me- 
diterranean, it holds a southerly direction at some distance from 
the continent of Africa ; till, after passing Cape Mesurada, it 
flows rapidly for 1000 miles due east to the Bight of Biafra in 
immediate contact with the equatorial current, running with great 
velocity in the opposite direction, and seems to merge in it at 
last. 

Periodical currents are frequent in the eastern seas : one flows 
into the Red Sea from October to May, and out of it from May to 
October. In the Persian Gulf this order is reversed ; in the In- 
dian Ocean and China Sea the waters are driven alternately 
backwards and forwards by the monsoons. It is the southwest- 
erly monsoon that causes inundations in the Ganges, and a tre- 
mendous surf on the coast of Coromandel. The tides also produce 
periodical currents on the coasts and in straits, the water running 
in one direction during the flood, and the contrary way in the 
ebb. The Roost of Sumburgh, at the southern promontory of 
Shetland, runs at the rate of 15 miles an hour; indeed, the 
strongest tidal currents known are among the Orkney and Shet- 
land islands ; their great velocity arises from local circumstances. 
Currents in the wide ocean move at the rate of from one to three 
miles an hour, but the velocity is less at the margin and bottom 
of the stream from friction. 

Whirlpools are produced by opposing winds and tides ; the 
whirlpool of Maelstrom, on the coast of Norway, is occasioned by 
the meeting of tidal currents round the islands of Lofoden and 
Mosktie ; it is a mile and a half in diameter, and so violent that 
its roar is heard at the distance of several leagues. 

Akhough with winds, tides, and currents, it might seem that 



EFFECT OF CURRENTS. 201 

the ocean is ever in motion, yet in the equatorial regions, far from 
land, dead calms prevail; the sea is of the most perfect stillness 
day after day; partaking of the universal quiet, and heaving its 
low flat waves in noiseless and regular periods as if nature were 
asleep. 

The safety and length of a voyage depends upon the skill with 
\vhich a seaman avails himself of the set of the different currents, 
and the direction of the permanent and periodical winds ; it is 
frequently shortened by following a very circuitous track to take 
advantage of them if favourable, or to avoid them if unfavourable. 
From Acapulco, in Mexico, across the Pacific to Manilla or Can- 
ton, the trade-wind and the equatorial current are so favourable 
that the voyage is accomplished in 50 or 60 days ; whereas, in 
returning, 90 or 100 are required. Within the Antillas naviga- 
tion is so difficult from winds and currents, that a vessel, going 
from Jamaica to the lesser Antillas, cannot sail directly across the 
Caribbean Sea, but must go round about through the windward 
passage between Cuba and Haiti to the ocean ; nearly as many 
weeks are requisite to accomphsh this voyage as it takes days to 
return. On account of the prevalence of westerly winds in the 
North Atlantic, the voyage from Europe to the United States is 
longer than that from the latter to Europe ; but the Gulf-stream 
is avoided in the outward voyage [i. e. from Europe], because it 
would lengthen the time by a fortnight. Ships going to the 
West Indies, Central or South America, from Europe, generally 
make the Canary Islands in order to fall in with the N.E. trade- 
winds. 

The passage to the Cape of Good Hope from the British Chan- 
nel may be undertaken at any season, and is accomplished in 50 
or 60 days ; but it is necessary to regulate the voyage from the 
Cape to India and China according to the seasons of the monsoons. 
There are various courses adopted for that purpose, but all of 
them pass through the very focus of the hurricane district, which 
includes the islands of Rodriguez, the Mauritius, and Bourbon, 
and extends from Madagascar to the island of Timor. 

The extensive deposits of coal discovered in the Bay of Talca- 
huano, in Chile, in Australia, New Zealand, in the British settle- 
ment at Labuan, and in Borneo, will be the means of increasing 
the steam navigation of the Pacific, and shortening the voyages 
upon that ocean. 

Sea-water is a bad conductor of heat, therefore the temperature 
of the ocean is less liable to sudden changes than the atmosphere ; 
the influence of the seasons is imperceptible at the depth of 300 feet ; 
and as light probably does not penetrate lower than 700 feet, the 
heat of the sun cannot affect the bottom of a deep sea. It has been 
established beyond a doubt that in all parts of the ocean the water 



202 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

has a constant temperature of about 39°'5 of Fahrenheit, at a cer- 
tain depth, depending on the latitude. At the equator the stratum, 
of water at that temperature is at the depth of 7200 feet; from 
thence it gradually rises till it comes to the surface in S. lat. 56° 
26', where the water has the temperature of 39°-5 at all depths ; 
it then gradually descends till S. lat. 70°, where it is 4500 feet 
below the surface. In going north from the equator the same law 
is observed. Hence, with regard to temperature, there are three 
regions in the ocean : one equatorial and two polar. In the equa- 
torial region the temperature of the water at the surface of the 
ocean is 80° of Fahrenheit, therefore higher than that of the stra- 
tum of 39°-5 ; while in the polar regions it is lower. Thus, the 
surface of the stratum of constant temperature is a curve which 
begins at the depth of 4500 feet in the southern basin, from 
whence it gradually rises to the surface in S. lat. 56° 26'; it 
then sweeps down to 7200 feet at the equator, and rises up again 
to the surface in the corresponding northern latitude, from whence 
it descends again to a depth of 4500 feet in the northern basin. 

The temperature of the surface of the ocean decreases from the 
equator to the poles. For 10 degrees on each side of the line the 
maximum is 80° of Fahrenheit, and remarkably stable ; from 
thence to each tropic the decrease does not exceed 3°*7. The 
tropical temperature would be greater were it not for the currents, 
because the surface reflects much fewer of the sun's rays which 
fall on it directly, than in higher latitudes where ihey fall ob- 
liquely. In the torrid zone the surface of the sea is about 3°*5 
of Fahrenheit warmer than the air above it; because the polar 
winds, and the great evaporation which absorbs the heat, prevent 
equilibrium ; and as a great mass of water is slow in following the 
changes in the atmosphere, the vicissitude of day and night has 
little influence, whereas in the temperate zones it is perceptible. 

The line of maximum temperature, or that which passes through 
all the points of greatest heat in the ocean, is very irregular, and 
does not coincide with the terrestrial equator ; six-tenths of its 
extent lies on an average 5° to the north of it, and the remainder 
runs at a mean distance of 3° on its southern side. It cuts the 
terrestrial equator in the middle of the Pacific Ocean in 21° E. 
longitude in passing from, the northern to the southern hemi- 
sphere, and again between Sumatra and the peninsula of Malacca 
in returning from the southern to the northern. Its maximum 
temperature in the Pacific is 88°"5 of Fahrenheit on the northern 
shores of New Guinea, where it touches the terrestrial equator, 
and its highest temperature in the Atlantic, which is exactly the 
same, lies in the Gulf of Mexico, which furnishes the warm water 
of the Gulf-stream. 

The superficial water of the Pacific is much cooled on the east 



POLAR ICE. 203 

by the Antarctic current ; it sends a cold stream along the coasts 
of Chile and Peru, which has great influence on the chmate of 
both countries ; it was first observed by Baron Humboldt, and is 
known as Humboldt's current. It is more than 14° colder than 
the adjacent ocean, and renders the air 11° cooler than the sur- 
rounding atmosphere. 

In the Indian Ocean the highest temperature of the surface- 
water (87°-4) is in the Arabian Sea, between the Strait of Bab- 
el-Mandeb and the coast of Hindostan ; it decreases regularly 
from south to north in the Red Sea. 

The superficial temperature diminishes from the tropics with the 
increase of the latitude more rapidly in the southern than in the 
northern hemisphere, till towards the poles the sea is never free 
from ice. In the Arctic Ocean the surface is at the freezing point 
even in summer ; and during the eight winter months a continu- 
ous body of ice extends in every direction from the pole, filling 
the area of a circle of between 3000 and 4000 miles in diameter. 
The outhne of this circle, though subject to partial variations, is 
found to be nearly similar at the same season of each succeeding 
year, yet there are periodical changes in the polar ice which are 
renewed after a series of years. The freezing process itself is a 
bar to the unlimited increase of the oceanic ice. Fresh water 
congeals at the temperature of 82° of Fahrenheit, but sea-water 
must be reduced to 28°*5 before it deposits its salt and begins to 
freeze : the salt thus set free, and the heat given out, retard the 
process of congelation more and more below. 

The ice from the north pole comes so far south in winter as to 
render the coast of Newfoundland inaccessible : it envelops 
Greenland, sometimes even Iceland, and always invests Spitz- 
bergen and Nova Zembla. As the sun comes north the ice 
breaks up into enormous masses of what is called packed ice. 
In the year 1808 Captain Scoresby forced his ship through 250 
miles of packed ice, in imminent danger, until he reached the 
parallel of 81° 50', his nearest approach to the pole : the Frozen 
Ocean is rarely navigable so far. 

In the year 1827 Sir Edward Parry arrived at the latitude of 
82° 45', which he accomplished by dragging a boat over fields of 
ice, but he was. obliged to abandon the bold and hazardous attempt 
to reach the pole, because the current drifted the ice southward 
more rapidly than he could travel over it to the north. 

The following considerations have induced some persons to 
believe that there is sea instead of land at the north pole. The 
average latitude of the northern shores of the continent is 70°, so 
that the Arctic Ocean is a circle whose diameter is 2400 geo- 
graphical miles, and its circumference 7200. On the Asiatic 
side of this sea are Nova Zembla and the New Siberian islands, 
each extending to about 76° N. latitude. On the European and 



204 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

American sides are Spitzbergen, extending to 80°, and a part of 
Old Greenland, whose northern termination is unknown. Facing 
America is a large island — Melville Island — with some others not 
extending so far north as those mentioned ; consequently all of 
them may be considered continental islands. As there are no 
large islands very far from land in the other great oceans, there 
is reason to presume that the same structure may prevail here 
also, and, consequently, it ma)'" be open sea at the north pole. 
Possibly also it may be free from ice, for Admiral Wrangel found 
a wide and open sea, free from ice and navigable, beginning 16 
miles north of the island of Kotelnoi, and extending to the meridian 
of Cape Jackan. In fine summers the ice suddenly clears away and 
leaves an open channel of sea along the western coast of Spitz- 
bergen from 60 to 150 miles wide, reaching to 80° or even to 80^° 
N. latitude probably owing to warm currents from low latitudes. 
It was through this channel that Captain Scoresby made his 
nearest approach to the pole. A direct course from the Thames, 
across the pole to Beh ring's Straits, is 3570 geographical miles, 
while by Lancaster Sound it is 4660 miles. The Russians would 
be saved a voyage of 18,800 geographical miles could they go 
across the pole and through Behring's Straits to their North 
American settlements, instead of going by Cape Horn. 

Floating fields of ice, 20 or 30 miles in diameter, are frequent 
in the Arctic Ocean : sometimes they extend 100 miles, so closely 
packed together that no opening is left between them ; their 
thickness, which varies from 10 to 40 feet, is not seen, as there 
is at least two-thirds of the mass below^ water. Sometimes these 
fields, many thousand millions of tons in weight, acquire a rotatory 
motion of great velocity, dashing against one another with a 
tremendous collision. Packed ice always has a tendency to drift 
southwards, even in the calmest weather ; and in their progress 
the ice-fields are rent in pieces by the swell of the sea. It is 
computed that 20,000 square miles of drift ice are annually 
brought by the current along the coast of Greenland to Cape 
Farewell. In stormy weather the fields and streams of ice are 
covered with haze and spray from constant tremendous concus- 
sions ; yet our seamen, undismayed by the appalling danger, 
boldly steer their ships amidst this hideous and discordant tumult. 

Huge icebergs and masses detached from the glaciers, which 
extend from the Arctic lands into the sea, especially in Baffin's 
Bay, are drifted southwards 2000 miles from their origin to melt 
in the Atlantic, where they cool the water sensibly for 30 or 40 
miles around, and the air to a much greater distance. They 
vary from a few yards to miles in circumference, and rise hun- - 
dreds of feet above the surface. Seven hundred such masses 
have been seen at once in the polar basin. When there is a 
swell the loose ice dashing against them raises the spray to their 



POLAR ICE. 205 

very summits ; and as they waste away they occasionally lose 
equilibrium and roll over, causing a swell which breaks up the 
neighbouring field-ice ; the commotion spreads far and wide, and 
the uproar resounds like thunder. 

Icebergs have the appearance of chalk-cliffs with a glittering 
surface and emerald-green fractures : pools of water of azure-blue 
lie on their surface or fall in cascades into the sea. The field-ice 
also, and the masses that are heaped up on its surface, are ex- 
tremely beautiful from the vividness and contrast of their colour- 
ing. A peculiar blackness in the atmosphere around a bright 
haze at the horizon indicates their position in a fog, and their 
place and character are shown at night by the reflection of the 
snow-light on the horizon. An experienced seaman can readily 
distinguish by the blink, as it is termed, whether the ice is newly- 
formed, heavy, compact, or open. The blink or snow-light of 
field-ice is the most lucid, and is tinged yellow ; of packed ice it 
is pure white : ice newly formed has a greyish bhnk, and a deep 
yellow tint indicates snow on land. 

Icebergs come to a lower latitude by 10° from the south pole 
than from the north, and appear to be larger ; they have been 
seen near the Cape of Good Hope, and are often of great size ; 
one observed by Captain D'Urville was 13 miles long, with per- 
pendicular sides 100 feet high ; they are less varied than those 
on the northern seas, a tabular form is the most prevalent. The 
discovery ships under the command of Sir James Ross met with 
multitudes with flat surfaces, bounded by perpendicular cliffs on 
every side, from 100 to 180 feet high, sometimes several miles in 
circumference. On one occasion they fell in with a chain of 
stupendous bergs close to one another, extending farther than the 
eye could reach even from the mast-head. Packed ice too is 
often in immense quantities : these ships forced their way through 
a pack 1000 miles broad, often under the most appalling circum- 
stances. It generally consists of smaller pieces than the packs in 
the comparatively tranquil North Polar seas, where they are often 
several miles in diameter, and where fields of ice extend beyond 
the reach of vision. The Antarctic Ocean, on the contrary, is 
almost always agitated ; there is a perpetual swell, and terrific 
storms are common, which break up the ice and render naviga- 
tion perilous. The floe pieces are rarely a quarter of a mile in 
circumference, and generally much smaller. 

A more dreadful situation can hardly be imagined than that of 
ships beset during a tempest in a dense pack of ice in a dark 
night, thick fog, and drifting snow, with the spray beating per- 
petually over the decks, and freezing instantaneously. Sir James 
Ross's own words can alone give an idea of the terrors of one of 
the many gales which the two ships under his command encoun- 
18 



206 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

tered : — " Soon after midnight our ships were involved in an 
ocean of rolling fragments of ice, hard as floating rocks of granite, 
which were dashed against them by the waves with so much 
violence, that their masts quivered as if they would fall at every 
successive blow ; and the destruction of the ships seemed inevi- 
table from the tremendous shocks they received. In the early 
part of the storm the rudder of the Erebus was so much damaged 
as to be no longer of any use ; and about the same time I was 
informed by signal that the Terror's was completely destroyed 
and nearly torn away from the stern-post. Hour passed away 
after hour without the least mitigation of the awful circumstances 
in which we were placed. The loud crashing noise of the 
straining and working of the timbers and decks, as they were 
driven against some of the heavier pieces of ice, which all the 
exertions of our people could not prevent, was sufficient to fill the 
stoutest heart, that was not supported by trust in Him who con- 
trols all events, with dismay ; and I should commit an act of 
injustice to my companions if I did not express my admiration of 
their conduct on this trying occasion. Throughout a period of 
28 hours, during any one of which there appeared to be very 
little hope that we should live to see another, the coolness, steady 
obedience, and untiring exertions of each individual, were every 
way worthy of British seamen. 

"The storm gained its height at 2 p.m., when the barometer 
stood at 28*40 inches, and after that time began to rise. 
Although we had been forced many miles deeper into the pack, 
we could not perceive that the swell had at all subsided, our 
ships still rolling and groaning amidst the heavy fragments of 
crushing bergs, over which the ocean rolled its mountainous 
waves, throwing huge masses upon one another, and then again 
burying them deep beneath its foaming waters, dashing and 
grinding them together with fearful violence." For three suc- 
cessive years were these dangers encountered during this bold 
and hazardous enterprise. 

The ocean is one mass of water, which, entering into the 
interior of the continents, has formed seas and gulfs of great magni- 
tude, which afford easy and rapid means of communication, while 
they temper the climates of the widely expanding continents. 

The inland seas communicating with the Atlantic are larger, 
and penetrate more deeply into the continents, than those con- 
nected with the great ocean ; a circumstance which gives a coast 
of 48,000 miles to the former, while that of the great ocean is only 
44,000. Most of these internal seas have extensive river domains, 
so that by inland navigation the Alantic virtually enters into the 
deepest recesses of the land, brings remote regions into contact, 
and improves the condition of the less cultivated races of mankind 
by commercial intercourse with those that are more civilized. 



INLAND SEAS. 207 

The Baltic, which occupies 125,000 square miles in the centre 
of northern Europe, is one of the most important of the inland 
seas connected with the Atlantic, and, although inferior to the 
others in size, the drainage of more than a fifth of Europe flows 
into it. Only about a fourth part of the boundary of its enormous 
basin of 900,000 square miles is mountainous ; and so many 
navigable rivers flow into it from the watershed of the great 
European plain, that its waters are one-fifth less salt than those 
of the Atlantic: it receives at least 250 streams. Its depth 
nowhere exceeds 167 fathoms,^" and generally it is not more 
than 40 or 50. From that cause, together with its freshness and 
northern latitude, the Baltic is frozen five months in the year. 
From the flatness of the greater part of the adjacent country, the 
climate of the Bahic is subject to influences coming from regions 
far beyond the limits of its river-basin. The winds from the 
Atlantic bring warmth and moisture, which, condensed by the 
cold blasts from the Arctic plains, falls in rain in summer, and 
deep snow in winter, which also makes the sea more fresh. 
The tides are imperceptible ; but the waters of the Baltic occa- 
sionally rise more than three feet above their usual level from, 
some unknown cause — possibly from oscillations in its bed, or 
from changes of atmospheric pressure. 

The Black Sea, which penetrates most deeply into the continent 
of all the seas in question, has, together with the Sea of Azov, an 
area of 190,000 square miles : it must at a remote period have 
been united with the Caspian Lake, and must have covered all 
the Steppe of Astracan. It receives some of the largest European 
rivers, and drains about 950,000 square miles, consequently its 
waters are brackish and freeze on its northern shores in winter. 
It is very deep, no bottom having been reached with a line of 
140 fathoms : on the melting of the snow, such a body of water is 
poured into it by the great European rivers that a rapid current 
is produced, which sets along the western shore from the mouth 
of the Dnieper to the channel of Constantinople. 

Of all the branches of the Atlantic that enter deeply into the 
bosom of the land, the Mediterranean is the largest and most beau- 
tiful, covering with its dark blue waters more than 760,000 
square miles. Situate in a comparatively low latitude, exposed 
to the heat of the African deserts on the south, and sheltered on 
the north by the Alps, the evaporation is excessive ; on that 
account the water of the Mediterranean is Salter than that of the 
ocean, and for the same reason the temperature at its surface is 
3^° of Fahrenheit higher than that of the Atlantic : it does not 
decrease so rapidly downwards as in tropical seas, and it becomes 
constant at depths of from 340 to 1000 fathoms, according to the 

^0 By Captain Albrecht's soundings. 



208 PHYSICAL GEOGBAPHY. 

situations. Although its own river domain is only 250,000 square 
miles, the constant current that sets in through the Dardanelles 
brings a great part of the drainage of the Black Sea, so that it is 
really fed by the melted snow and rivers from the Caucasus, Asia 
Minor, Abyssinia, the Atlas, and the Alps. Yet the quantity of 
water that flows into the Mediterranean from the Atlantic, by the 
central current in the Straits of Gibraltar, exceeds that which 
goes out by the lateral currents. 

Near Alexandria the surface of this sea is 26 feet 6 inches 
lower than the level of the Red Sea at Suez at low water, and 
about 30 feet lower at high water.^^ 

On the shore of Cephalonia there is a cavity in the rocks, into 
which the sea has been flowing for ages.^^ 

The Mediterranean is divided into two basins by a shallow that 
runs from Cape Bon on the African coast to the Strait of Messina, 
on each side of which the water is exceedingly deep, and said to 
be unfathomable in some parts. M. Berard has sounded to the 
depth of more than 1000 fathoms in several places without reach- 
ing the bottom. At Nice, within a few yards of the shore, it is 
nearly 700 fathoms deep ; and Captain ^myth, R. N., ascertained 
the depth to be 960 fathoms between Gibraltar and Ceuta. This 
sea is not absolutely without tides ; in the Gulf of Venice they 
rise three feet, and at the Great Syrte to five feet at new and full 
moon, but in most other places they are scarcely perceptible. 
The surface is traversed by various currents, two of which, oppo- 
sing one another, occasion the celebrated whirlpool of Charybdis, 
whose terrors were much diminished by the earthquake of 1783. 
Its bed is subject to violent volcanic paroxysms, and its surface is 
studded with islands of all sizes, from the magnificent kingdom of 
Sicily to mere barren rocks — some actively volcanic, others of vol- 
canic formation, and many of the secondary geological period. 

Various parts of its coasts are in a state of great instability ; in 
some places they have sunk down and risen again more than 
once within the historical period. 

Far to the north the Atlantic penetrates the American continent 
by Davis's Straits, and spreads out into Baffin's bay, twice the 
size of the Baltic, very deep, and subject to all the rigours of an 
arctic winter'— the very storehouse of icebergs — the abode of the 
walrus and the whale. Hudson's Bay, though without the Arc- 
tic Circle, is but little less dreary. 

Very diflerent is the character of those vast seas where the 
Atlantic comes " cranking in" between the northern and south- 
ern continents of America. The surface of the sea in Baffin's 

" By the measurement of M. Lepere in the French expedition to 
Egypt. — "Annales du Bureau de Longitude/' 1836. 

^^ Proceedings of the Royal Geological Society^ vol. ii., p. 210. 



SPRINGS. 209 

Bay is seldom above the freezing-point ; here, on the contrary, it 
is always 88°*5 of Fahrenheit, while the Atlantic Ocean in the 
same latitude is not above 77° or 78°. Of that huge mass of 
water, partially separated from the Atlantic by a long line of 
islands and banks, the Caribbean Sea is the largest ; it is as long 
from east to west as the distance between Great Britain and New- 
foundland, and occupies a million of square miles. Its depth in 
many places is very great, and its water is limpid. The Gulf of 
Mexico, fed by the Mississippi, one of the greatest of rivers, is 
more than half its size, or about 625,000 square miles, so that the 
whole forms a sea of great magnitude. Its shores, and the shores 
of the numerous islands, are dangerous from shoals and coral-reefs, 
but the interior of these seas is not. The trade-winds prevail 
there ; they are subject to severe northern gales, and some parts 
are occasionally visited by tremendous hurricanes. 

By the levelling across the peninsula of Panama by Mr. Lloyd, 
in 1828, the mean height of the Pacific above that of the Atlan- 
tic was found to be three feet six inches. 

The Pacific does not penetrate the land in the same manner 
that the Atlantic does the continent of Europe. The Red Sea 
and Persian Gulf are joined to it by very narrow straits ; but 
almost all the internal seas on the eastern coast of Asia, except 
the Yellow Sea, are great gulfs shut in by islands, like the Carib- 
bean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, to which the China Sea, the 
Sea of Japan, and that of Okhotsk are perfectly analogous. 

The set of the great oceanic currents has scooped out and 
indented the southern and eastern coasts of the Asiatic continent 
into enormous bays and gulfs, and has separated large portions of 
the land, which now remain as islands — a process which probably 
has been increased by the submarine fires extending along the 
eastern coast from the equator nearly to the Arctic Circle. 

The perpetual agitation of the ocean by winds, tides, and cur- 
rents, is continually, but slowly, changing the form and position ot 
the land — steadily producing those vicissitudes on the surface of 
the earth to which it has been subject for ages, and to which it 
L' will assuredly be hable in all time to come. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



Springs — Basins of the Ocean — Origin, Course, and Heads of Rivers- 
Hydraulic Systems of Europe — African Rivers — the Nile, Niger, &c. 

The vapour which rises invisibly from the land and water ascends 

18* 



210 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

in the atmosphere till it is condensed by the cold into clouds, 
which restore it again to the earth in the form of rain, hail, and 
snow ; hence, there is probably not a drop of water on the globe 
that has not been borne on the wings of the wind. Part of this 
moisture restored to the earth is reabsorbed by the air, part sup- 
plies the wants of animal and vegetable life, a portion is carried 
off by the streams, and the remaining part penetrates through 
porous soils till it arrives at a stratum, impervious to water, where 
it accumulates in subterranean lakes often of great extent. The 
mountains receive the greatest portion of the aerial moisture, and, 
from the many alternations of permeable and impermeable strata 
they contain, a complete system of reservoirs is formed in them, 
which, continually overflowing, form perennial springs at different 
elevations, which unite and run down their sides in incipient 
rivers. A great portion of the water at these high levels pene- 
trates the earth till it comes to an impermeable stratum below the 
plains, where it collects in a sheet, and is forced by hydraulic 
pressure to rise in springs, through cracks in the ground, to the 
surface. In this manner the water which falls on hills and moun- 
tains is carried through highly-inclined strata to great depths, and 
even below the bed of the ocean, in many parts of which there 
are springs of fresh water. In boring Artesian wells the water 
often rushes up with such impetuosity by the hydrostatic pres- 
sure as to form jets 40 or 50 feet high. In this operation several 
successive reservoirs have been met with ; at St. Ouen, near Paris, 
five sheets of water were found ; the water in the first four not 
being good, the operation was continued to a greater depth ; it 
consists merely in boring a hole of small diameter, and lining it 
with a tube. It rarely happens that water may not be procured 
in this way ; and as the substratum in many parts of deserts is an 
argillaceous marl, it is probable that Artesian wells might be bored 
with success. 

A spring will be intermittent when it issues from an opening 
in the side of a reservoir fed from above, if the supply be not 
equal to the waste, for the water will sink below the opening, 
and the spring will stop till the reservoir is replenished. Few 
springs give the same quantity of water at all times ; they also 
vary much in the quantity of foreign matter they contain. Moun- 
tain-springs are generally very pure, the carbonic acid gas almost 
always found in them escapes into the atmosphere, and their 
earthy matter is deposited as they run along, so that river-water 
from such source is soft, while wells and springs in the plains 
are hard, and more or less mineral. 

The water of springs takes its temperature from that of the 
strata through which it passes : mountain-springs are cold, but, 
if the water has penetrated deep into the earth, it acquires a tem- 
perature depending on that circumstance. 



SPRINGS. 211 

The temperature of the surface of the earth varies with the sea- 
sons to a certain depth, where it becomes permanent and equal to 
the mean annual temperature of the air above. It is evident that 
the depth at which this stratum of invariable temperature lies 
must vary with the latitude. At the equator the effect of the sea- 
sons is imperceptible at the depth of a foot below the surface : 
between the parallels of 40° and 52° the temperature of the 
ground in Europe is constant at the depth of from 55 to 60 feet : 
and in the high Arctic regions the soil is perpetually frozen a foot 
below the surface. Now, in every part of the world where expe- 
riments have been made, the temperature of the earth increases 
with the depth below the constant stratum at the rate of 1° of 
Fahrenheit for every 50 or 60 feet of perpendicular depth ; 
hence, should the increase continue to follow the same ratio, even 
granite must be in fusion at little more than five miles below the 
surface. In Siberia, the stratum of frozen earth is some hundred 
feet thick, but below that the increase of heat with the depth is 
three times as rapid as in Europe. The temperature of springs 
must therefore depend on the depth to which the water has pene- 
trated before it has been forced to the surface, either by the hy- 
draulic pressure of water at higher levels, or by steam. If it never 
goes below the stratum of invariable temperature, the heat of the 
spring will vary with the seasons, more or less, according to the 
depth below the surface : should the water come from the constant 
stratum itself, its temperature will be invariable ; and if from 
below it, the heat will be in proportion to the depth to which it 
has penetrated. Thus, there may be hot and even boiling 
springs hundreds of miles distant from volcanic aciion and vol- 
canic strata, of which there are many examples, though they are 
more frequent in volcanic countries and those subject to earth- 
quakes. The temperature of hot springs is very constant, and 
that of boiling springs has remained unchanged for ages ; shocks 
of earthquakes sometimes affect the temperature, and have even 
stopped them altogether. Jets of steam of high tension are fre- 
quent in volcanic countries, as in Iceland. 

Both hot and cold w^ater dissolves and combines with many of 
the mineral substances it meets with in the earth, and comes to 
the surface from great depths as medicinal springs, containing 
various ingredients. So numerous are they that in the Austrian 
dominions alone there are 1500; and few countries of any extent 
are destitute of them. They contain hydro-sulphuric and car- 
bonic acids, sulphur, iron, magnesia, and other substances. Boil- 
ing springs deposit silex, as in Iceland and in the Azores ; and 
others of lower temperature deposit carbonate of lime in great 
quantities all over the world. Springs of pure brine are rare ; 
those in Cheshire are rich in salt, and have flowed unchanged 



212 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

1000 years, a proof of the tranquil state of that part of the globe. 
Many substances that lie beyond our reach are brought to the sur- 
face by springs, as naphtha, petroleum, and boracic acid : petro- 
leum is particularly abundant in Persia, and numberless springs 
and lakes of it surround some parts of the Caspian Sea. It is 
found in immense quantities in various parts of the world. 



RIVERS. 

Rivers have had a greater influence on the location and fortunes 
of the human race than almost any other physical cause, and, since 
their velocity has been overcome by steam navigation, they have 
become the highway of the nations. 

They frequently rise in lakes, which they unite with the sea; 
in other instances they spring from small elevations in the plains, 
from perennial sources in the mountains, alpine lakes, melted snow 
and glaciers ; but the everlasting storehouses of the mightiest 
floods are the ice-clad mountains of table-lands. 

Rivers are constantly increased, in descending the mountains 
and traversing the plains, by tributaries, till at last they flow into 
the ocean, their ultimate destination and remote origin. "All 
rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full," beQause it gives in 
evaporation an equivalent for what it receives. 

The Atlantic, the Arctic, and the Pacific Oceans are directly or 
indirectly the recipients of all the rivers, therefore their basins are- 
bounded by the principal watersheds of the continents ; for the 
basin of a sea or ocean does not mean only the bed actually occu- 
pied by the water, but comprehends also all the land drained by 
the rivers which fall into it, and is bounded by an imaginary line 
passing through all their sources. These lines generally run 
through the elevated parts of a country that divide the streams 
which flow in one direction from those that flow in another. But 
the watershed does not coincide, in all cases, with mountain-crests 
of great elevation, as the mere convexity of a plain is often suflicient 
to throw the streams into different directions. 

From the peculiar structure of the high land and mountain- 
chains, by far the greater number of important rivers on the globe 
flow into the ocean in an easterly direction, those which flow to 
the south and north being the next in size, while those that flow 
in a westerly direction are small and unimportant. 

The course of all rivers is changed when they pass from one 
geological formation to another, or by dislocations of the strata: 
the sudden deviations in their directions are generally owing to 
these circumstances. 

None of the European rivers flowing directly into the Atlantic 



COURSE OF RIVERS. 2l3 

exceed the fourth or fifth magnitude, except the Rhine ; the rest 
of the principal streams come to it indirectly through the Baltic, 
the Black Sea, and the Mediterranean. It nevertheless receives 
nearly half the waters of the old continent, and almost all the new, 
because the Andes and Rocky Mountains, which form the water- 
shed of the American continent, lie along its western side, and the 
rivers which rise on the western slope of the AUeghanies are tri- 
butaries to the Mississippi, which comes indirectly into the Atlantic 
by the Gulf of Mexico. 

The Arctic Ocean drains the high northern latitudes of America, 
and receives those magnificent Siberian rivers that originate in the 
Altai range from the Steppe of the Kerghis to the extremity of 
Kamtchatka, as well as the very inferior streams of North Euro- 
pean Russia. The running waters of the rest of the world flow 
into the Pacific. The Caspian and Lake Aral are mere salt-water 
lakes, which receive rivers but emit none. However, nearly one- 
half of all the running water in Europe falls into the Black Sea 
and the Caspian. 

Mountain-torrents gradually lose velocity in their descent to the 
low lands by friction, and when they enter the plains their course 
becomes still more gentle, and their depths greater. A slope of 
one foot in 200 prevents a river from being navigable, and a greater 
inclination forms a rapid or cataract. The speed, however, does 
not depend entirely upon the slope, but also upon the height of the 
source of the river, and the pressure of the body of Avater in the 
upper part of its course; consequently, under the same circum- 
stances, large rivers run faster than small, but in each individual 
stream the velocity is perpetually varying with the form of the 
banks, the winding of the course, and the changes inlhe width of 
the channel. The Rhone, one of the most rapid European rivers, 
has a decHvity of one foot in 2620, and flows at the rate of 120 
feet in a minute ; the sluggish rivers in Flanders have only one- 
half that velocity. The Danube, the Tigris, and the Indus 
are among the most rapid of the large rivers. In flat countries 
rivers are generally more meandering, and thus they afford a 
greater amount of irrigation ; the windings of the Vistula are nearly 
equal to nine-tenths of its direct course from its source to its 
mouth. 

When one river falls into another, the depth and velocity are 
increased, but not always proportionally to the width of the chan- 
nel, which sometimes even becomes less, as at the junction of the 
Ohio with the Mississippi. When the angle of junction is very 
obtuse, and the velocity of the tributary stream great, it sometimes 
forces the water of its primary to recede a short distance. The 
Arve, swollen by a freshet, occasionally drives the water of the 
Rhone back into the Lake of Geneva; and it once happened that 



214 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

the force was so great as to make the mill-wheels revolve in a con- 
trary direction. 

Streams sometimes suddenly vanish, and after flowing under- 
ground to some distance reappear at the surface, as in Derbyshire. 
Instances have occurred of rivers suddenly stopping in their course 
for some hours, and leaving their channels dry. On the 26th of 
November, 1838, the water failed so completely in the Clyde, Nith, 
and Teviot,that the mills were stopped eight hours in the lower part 
of their streams. The cause was the coincidence of a gale of wind 
and a strong frost, which congealed the water near their sources. 
Exactly the contrary happens in the Siberian rivers, which flow 
from south to north over so many hundreds of miles ; the upper 
parts are thawed, while the lower are still frozen, and the water, 
not finding an outlet, inundates the country. 

The alluvial soil carried down by streams is gradually deposited 
as their velocity diminishes ; and if they are subject to inundations, 
and the coast flat, it forms deltas at their mouths ; there they gener- 
ally divide into branches, Avhich often join again, or are united by 
transverse channels, so that a labyrinth of streams and islands is 
formed. Dekas are sometimes found in the interior of the conti- 
nents at the junction of rivers, exactly similar to those on the ocean, 
though less extensive : deltas are said to be maritime, lacustrine, 
or fluviatile, according as the stream that forms them falls into the 
sea, a lake, or another river. 

Tides flow up rivers to a great distance, and to a height far 
above the level of the sea: the tide is perceptible in the river of 
the Amazons 576 miles from its mouth, and it ascends 355 miles 
in the Orinoco. 

In the temperate zones rivers are subject to floods from autumnal 
rains, and the melting of the snow, especially on mountain-ranges. 
The Po, for example, spreads desolation far and wide over the 
plains of Lombardy; but these torrents are as variable in their 
recurrence and extent as the climate which produces them. The 
inundations of the rivers in the torrid zone, on the contrary, occur 
with a regularity peculiar to a region in which meteoric pheno- 
mena are uniform in all their changes. These floods are due to 
the periodical rains, which, in tropical countries, follow the cessa- 
tion of the trade-winds after the vernal equinox and at the turn of 
the monsoons, and are thus dependent on the dechnation of the 
sun, the immediate cause of all these variations. The melting of 
the snow no doubt adds greatly to the floods of the tropical rivers 
which rise in high mountain-chains, but it is only an accessory 
circumstance ; for although the snow-water from the Himalaya 
swells the streams considerably before the rains begin, yet the 
principal effect is owing to the latter, as the southern face of the 
Himalaya is not beyond the influence of the monsoon, and the con- 



HEADS OF RIVERS. 215 

sequent periodical rains, which besides prevail all over the plains 
of India traversed by the great rivers and their tributaries. 

Under like circumstances, the floods of rivers, whose sources 
have the same latitude, take place at the same season ; but the 
periods of the inundations of rivers on one side of the equator are 
exactly the contrary of what they are in rivers on the other side 
of it, on account of the declination of the sun. The flood in the 
Orinoco is at its greatest height in the month of August, while that 
of the river of the Amazons, south of the equinoctial line, is at its 
greatest elevation in March.*^ The commencement and end of the 
annual inundations in each river depend upon the mean time of 
the beginning, and on the duration of the rains in the latitudes tra- 
versed by its affluents. The periods of the floods in such rivers 
as run towards the equator are different from those flowing in an 
opposite direction ; and as the rise requires time to travel, it hap- 
pens at regular but different periods in various parts of the same 
river, if very long. The height to which the water rises in the 
annual floods depends upon the nature of the country, but it is 
wonderfully constant in each individual river where the course is 
long; for the inequality in the quantity of rain in a district drained 
by any of its affluents is imperceptible in the general flood, and 
thus the quantity of water carried down is a measure of the mean 
humidity of the whole country comprised in its basin from year to 
year. By the admirable arrangement of these periodical inunda- 
tions the fresh soil of the mountains, borne down by the water, 
enriches countries far remote from their source. The waters from 
the high lands designated as the Mountains of the Moon, and of 
Abyssinia, have fertilized the banks of the Nile throijigh a distance 
of 2500 miles for thousands of years. 

When rivers rise in mountains, water communication between 
them in the upper parts of their course is impossible; but Avhen 
they descend to the plains, or rise in the low lands, the boundaries 
between the countries drained by them become low, and the dif- 
ferent systems may be united by canals. It sometimes happens 
in extensive and very level plains, that the tributaries of the prin- 
cipal streams either unite or are connected by a natural canal, 
by which a communication is formed between the two basins — a 
circumstance advantageous to the navigation and commerce of 
both, especially where the junction takes place far inland, as on 
the Orinoco and Amazons in the interior of South America. The 
Rio Negro, one of the largest affluents of the latter, is united to the 
Upper Orinoco in the plains of Esmeralda by the Cassiquiare — a 
stream as large as the Rhine, with a velocity of 12 feet in a second. 
Baron Humboldt observes that the Orinoco, sending a branch to 

^'^ Baron Humboldt's Personal Narrative. 



216 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY, 

the Amazons, is, with regard to distance, as if the Rhine should 
send one to the Seine or Loire. At some future period this junc- 
tion will be of great importance. These bifurcations are frequent 
in the deltas of rivers, but very rare in the interior of continents. 
The Mahamuddy and Godavery, in Hindostan, seem to have some- 
thing of the kind ; and there are several instances in the great 
rivers of the Indo-Chinese peninsula. 

The hydraulic system of Europe is eminently favourable to in- 
land navigation, small as the rivers are in comparison with those 
in other parts of the world; but the flatness of the great plain, and 
the lowness of its watershed, are very favourable to the construc- 
tion of canals. In the west, however, the Alps and German moun- 
tains divide the waters that flow to the Atlantic on one side, and 
to the Mediterranean and Black Sea on the other; but in the east- 
ern parts of Europe the division of the waters is merely a more 
elevated ridge of the plain itself, for in all plains such undulations 
exist, though often imperceptible to the eye. This watershed 
begins on the northern declivity of the Carpathian Mountains, about 
the 23d meridian, in a low range of hills running between the 
sources of the Dnieper and the tributaries of the Vistula, from 
whence it winds in a tortuous course along the plain to the Valdai 
table-land, which is its highest point, 1200 feet above the sea; it 
then declines northward towards Onega, about the 60th parallel, 
and lastly turns in a very serpentine line to the sources of the 
Kama in the Ural mountains near the 62d degree of north lati- 
tude. The waters north of this line run into the Baltic and 
White Sea, and, on the south of it, into the Black Sea and the 
Caspian. | 

Thus, Eur(]|)e is divided into two principal hydraulic systems; 
but since thet)asin of a river comprehends all the plains and 
valleys drained by it and its tributaries from its source to the sea, 
each country is subdivided into as many natural divisions or 
basins as it has primary rivers, and these generally comprise all 
the rich and habitable parts of the earth, and are the principal 
centres of civilization, or are capable of becoming so. 

The streams to the north of the general watershed are very 
numerous ; those to the south are of greater magnitude. The sys- 
tems of the Volga and Danube are the most extensive in Europe; 
the former has a basin comprising 640,000 square miles, and is 
navigable throughout the greater part of its course of 1900 miles. 
It rises in a small lake on the slopes of the Valdai table-land, 550 
feet above the level of the ocean, and falls into the Caspian, which 
is 83 feet 7 inches below the level of the Black Sea, so that it has 
a fall of 633 feet in a course of more than 2400 miles. It carries 
to the Caspian one-seventh of all the river- water of Europe. 

Danube drains 300,000 square miles, and receives 60 navigable 



HYDRAULIC SYSTEMS OF EUROPE. 217 

tributaries. Its quantity of water is nearly as much as that of 
all the rivers that empty themselves into the Black Sea taken 
together. Its direct course is 900 miles, its meandering line is 
2400. It rises in the Black Forest at an elevation of 2850 feet 
above the level of the sea, so that it has considerable velocity, 
which, as well as rocks and rapids, impedes its navigation in 
many places, but it is navigable downwards, through Austria, 
for 600 miles, to New Orsova, from whence it flows in a gentle 
current to the Black Sea. The commercial importance of these 
two rivers is much increased by their flowing into inland seas. 
By canals between the Volgaand the rivers north of the watershed, 
the Baltic and White Seas are connected with the Black Sea and 
the Caspian ; and the Baltic and Black Sea are also connected 
by a canal between the Don and the Dnieper. Altogether, the 
water system of Russia is the most extensive in Europe. 

The whole of Holland is a collection of deltoid islands, formed 
by the Rhine, the Mouse, and the Scheldt — a structure very 
favourable to commerce, and which has facilitated an extensive 
internal navigation. The Mediterranean is already connected 
with the North Sea by the canal which runs from the Rhone to 
the Rhine ; and this noble system, extended over the whole of 
France by 7591 miles of inland navigation, has conduced mainly 
to the improved state of that great country. 

Many navigable streams rise in the Spanish mountains ; of 
these th3 Tagus has depth enough for the largest ships as high as 
Lisbon. Its actual course is 480 miles, but its direct line much 
less. In point of magnitude, however, the Spanish rivers are of 
inferior order, but canals have rendered them beneficial to the 
country. Italy is less favoured in her rivers, whichr only admit 
vessels of small burthen ; those on the north are by much the 
most important, especially the Po and its tributaries, which by 
canals connect Venice and Milan with various fertile provinces of 
Northern Italy ;' but whatever advantages nature has afforded to 
the Italian states have been improved by able engineers, both in 
ancient and modern times. 

The application of the science of hydraulics to rivers took its 
rise in Northern Italy, which has been carried to such perfection 
in some points, that China is the only country which can vie with 
it in the practice of irrigation. The lock on canals was in use in 
Lombardy as early as the 13th century, and in the end of the 
15th it was appUed to two canals which unite the Ticino to the 
Adda, by that great artist and philosopher Leonardo da Vinci : 
about the same time he introduced the use of the lock into France.^* 

'4 Leonardo da Vinci was appointed Director of Hydraulic Operations 
in Lombardy by the Duke of Milan, and during the time he was paint- 

X 'J 



218 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

Various circumstances combine to make tiie British rivers more 
useful than many others of greater magnitude. The larger 
streams are not encumbered with rocks or rapids ; they all run 
into branches of the Atlantic ; the tides flow up their channels to 
a considerable distance; and above aJl, though short in their 
course, they end in wide estuaries and sounds, capable of contain- 
ing whole navies- — a circumstance that gives an importance to 
streams otherwise insignificant, when compared with the great 
rivers of either the old or new continent. 

The Thames, whose basin is only 5027 square miles, and whose 
length is but 240 miles, of which, however, 204 are navigable, 
spreads its influence over the remotest parts of the earth ; its depth 
is sufficient to admit large vessels even up to London, and through- 
out its navigable course a continued forest of masts display the 
flags of every nation: its banks, which are in a state of perfect 
cultivation, are the seat of the highest civilization, moral and 
political. Local circumstances have undoubtedly been favourable 
to this superior development, but the earnest and energetic teni- 
perament of the Saxon races has rendered the advantages of their 
position available. The same may be said of other rivers in the 
British islands, where commercial enterprise and activity vie with 
that on the Thames. There are 2790 miles of canal in Britain, 
and, including rivers, 5430 miles of inland navigation, which, in 
comparison with the size of the country, is very great ; it is even 
said that no part of England is more than 15 miles distant from 
water communication. 

On the whole, Europe is fortunate with regard to its w^ater 
systems, and its inhabitants are for the most part alive to the 
bounties which Providence has bestowed. 



AFRICAN RIVERS. 

In Africa the tropical chmate and the extremes of aridity and 
moisture give a totally different character to its rivers. The 
most southerly part is comparatively destitute of them, and those 
that do exist are of inferior size, except the Gariep, or Orange 
River, which has a long course on the table-land, but is nowhere 
navigable. From the eastern edge of the table-land of South 
Africa, which is very abrupt, rise all those rivers which flow 

ing the '^ Last Supper" he completed the Canal of Martesana, extending 
from the Adda to Milan, and improved the course of the latter river 
from where it emerges from the Lake of Como to the Po. By means 
of the Naviglio Grande, the Martesana canal estabhshes a water com- 
munication between the Adda and the Ticino, the Lakes of Como and 
Maggiore. 



THE NILE. 219 

across the plains of Mozambique and Zanguebar to the Indian 
Ocean. Of these, the Zambesi, or Q-uiUimane, is probably the 
largest : it is said to have a course of 900 miles, and to be navi- 
gable during the rains for 200 or 300 miles from its mouth. The 
Ozay, not far south of the equator, is also believed to be of great 
extent, and the Juba, more to the north ; all these streams have 
little water at their mouths during the dry season, but in the 
rainy season they are navigable. Some of those still farther north 
do not reach the sea at all times of the year, but end in lakes and 
marshes, as the Haines and Hawash. The first, after coming to 
within a small distance of the Indian Ocean, runs southward pa- 
rallel to the coast, and falls into a very large and deep lake about 
a degree north of the equator. Between the Hawash and the 
Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb there is no river of any note. In many 
parts of the coast, near the rivers, grain ripens all the year, yield- 
ing from 80 to 150 fold, and every eastern vegetable production 
might be raised. The Hawash runs through a low desert country 
inhabited by the Dankali Beduins : that river is the recipient of 
the waters which come from the eastern declivity of the table- 
land of Abyssinia, while the Nile recieves those of the counter 
slope. 

The part of the table-land between the 18th parallel of south 
latitude and the equator is the origin from whence the waters 
flow to the Atlantic on one hand, and to the Mediterranean on 
the other. Those which go to the Atlantic rise south of Lake 
N'yassi, chiefly in a ridge of no great elevation which runs from 
S.W. to N.E. to the west of the dominions of the Cambeze, and, 
after falling in cascades and rapids through the chains that border 
the table-land on the west, fertihze the luxuriant maritime plains 
of Benguela, Congo, Angola, and Loando. The Zaire, or Congo, 
by much the largest of these, is navigable for 140 miles, where 
the ascent of the tide is stopped by cataracts. The lower course 
of this river is 5 or 6 miles broad, full of islands, and 160 fathoms 
deep at its mouth. Its upper course, like that of most of these 
rivers, is unknown ; the greater number are fordable on the table- 
land, but, from the abrupt descent of the high country to the ma- 
ritime plains, none of them aflbrd access to the interior of South 
Africa. 

The mountainous edge of the table-land, with its terminal pro- 
jections, Senegambia and Abyssinia, which separate the northern 
from the southern deserts, are the principal source of running 
water in Africa. Various rivers have their origin in these moun- 
tainous regions, of which the Nile and the Niger yield in size 
only to some of the great Asiatic and American rivers. In im- 
portance and historical interest the Nile is inferior to none. 

Two large rivers unite their streams to form the Nile — the 



220 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

Bahr-el-Abiad, or White Nile, and the Bahr-el-Azrek, or Blue 
Nile ; but the latter is so far inferior to the Bahr-el-Abiad that it 
may almost be regarded as a tributary. The main stream has 
never been ascended by any traveller above 4° 42' 42" north lati- 
tude, where a ledge of gneiss crossing it arrested the progress of 
the second expedition sent by the Viceroy of Egypt to discover 
its source. Bahr-el-Abiad, or the true Nile, is supposed, from 
the report of the natives, to rise, under the name of the Tubiri, at 
a comparatively small distance from the sea, in the country of 
Mono Moezi, which is a continuation of the high plateau of Abys- 
sinia, situate to the north of the great Lake Zambeze, or N'yassi. 
The natives say that it flows from the lake itself; at all events it 
seems to be pretty certain that its origin is in the mountainous or 
hilly country of Mono Moezi, a word which in all the languages 
of that part of Africa signifies the Moon : hence, the Nile has 
been said, since the days of Ptolemy, to rise in the Mountains of 
the Moon. Amidst many windings it takes a general direction 
towards the N.E. to the 14th northern parallel, whence it follows 
the same course till its junction near Khartum with the Blue Nile 
in the plains of Sennaar. 

The Shoaberri and Godjeb, the chief affluents of the White 
Nile, come from the east ; the former makes a great circuit round 
the country of Berri before it falls into the Nile, and the Godjeb, 
which has its origin in the great forest already mentioned, in the 
Galla country, south of Abyssinia, makes a similar spiral detour 
round Kafla, and under the name of Subat joins the Nile, which 
it enlarges to nearly double its size. 

The Abyssinian branch of the Nile, known as the Bahr-el 
Azrek, or Blue River, rises under the name of the Dedhesa in the 
Galla country, south of Abyssinia, about 73 miles west of Sokka, 
the capital of Enarea. It springs from a swampy meadow in the 
same elevated plains where the Godjeb and other affluents of the 
White Nile originate, and after a completely spiral course, in 
which it separates the kingdoms of Guma and Enarea, it main- 
tains a general north-westerly direction till it joins the White Nile 
at Khartum. Of the many tributaries to the Blue River, the 
Abai, the Nile of Bruce, is the greatest and most celebrated. Its 
sources are in a swampy meadow near Mount Giesk, in the dis- 
trict of Sakkata, from whence it takes a circular direction round 
the peninsula of Gojam, passing through Lake Dembea, and re- 
ceiving many affluents from the mountain-chain that forms the 
cone of the peninsula, and at last falls into the Dedhesa or Bahr- 
el-Azrek, in about 11° N. latitude. From that point no stream 
of any consequence joins either the Blue River, or the united 
streams of the Blue and White Rivers, till 160 miles below their 
confluence, where the Atbarah, or Takkazie, falls into it. This 



ABYSSINIAN RIVERS. 221 

river, which is the principal tributary of the Nile, is formed by- 
two branches. The Takkazie rises in the mountains of Lasta, 
near Lalibata, one of the most celebrated places in Abyssinia, re- 
markable for its churches hewn out of the living rock, and the 
Tselari, which springs from Mount Biala, the northern extremity 
of the high land of Lasta, which divides the head waters of the 
two branches. The united stream, after winding like the other 
rivers of this country, joins the Nile in 18° N. latitude, the north- 
ern limit of the tropical rains. 

The Abyssinian rivers in the early part of their course are 
little more than muddy brooks in the dry season, but during the 
rains they inundate the plains. They break from the table-lands 
through fissures in the rocky surface, which are at first only a 
few yards wide, but gradually increase to several miles ; the 
streams form cataracts from 80 to more than 100 feet high, and 
then continue to descend by a succession of falls and rapids, 
which decrease in height as they go northwards to join the main 
stream. The Takkazie takes its name of " The Terrible" from 
the impetuosity with which it rushes through the chasms and 
over the precipices of the mountains. 

A peculiarity of most of the principal affluents of the Nile is 
their spiral course, so that, after having formed a curve of greater 
or less extent, generally round insulated mountain masses, they 
return upon themselves at a short distance from their sources. 
It is by no means improbable that the head stream of the Nile 
itself takes a spiral course round a lofty mountain mass, similar to 
the snow-clad mountains of Samien and Kaffa.^^ 

From the Takkazie down to the Mediterranean, a distance of 
1200 miles, the Nile does not receive a single brook. The first 
part of that course is interrupted by cataracts, from the geological 
structure of the Nubian desert, which consists of a succession of 
broad sterile terraces, separated by ranges of rocks running east 
and west. Over these the Nile falls in nine or ten cataracts, the. 
last of which is at Es-Souan (Syene), where it enters Egypt. 
Most of them are only rapids, where each successive fall of water 
is not a foot high. That they were higher at a former period has 
recently been ascertained by Dr. Lepsius, the very intelligent 
traveller sent by the King of Prussia at the head of a mission to 
explore that country. He found a series of inscriptions on the 
rocks at Sennaar, marking the height of the Nile at different pe- 
riods ; and it appears from these, that in that country the bed of 
the river had been 30 feet higher than it is now. 

Fifteen miles below Cairo, and at 90 miles from the sea, the 
Nile is divided into two branches, of which one, running in a 

^5 Dr. Beke on the Nile and its affluents. 
19* 



222 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

northerly direction, enters the Mediterranean below Rosetta ; the 
other, cutting Lower Egypt into two nearly equal parts, enters 
the sea above Damietta, so that the delta between these two 
places has a sea-coast of 187 miles. The fall from the great 
cataract to the sea is two inches in a mile. 

The basin of the Nile, occupying an area of 500,000 square 
miles, has an uncommon form : it is wide in Ethiopia and Nubia, 
but for the greater part of a winding course of 2750 miles it is 
merely a verdant Hne of the softest beauty, suddenly and strongly 
contrasted with the dreary waste of the Red Desert. Extending 
from the equatorial far into the temperate zone, its aspect is less 
varied than might have been expected on account of the parched 
and showerless country it passes through. Nevertheless, from 
the great elevation of the origin of the river, the upper part has 
a perpetual spring, though within a few degrees of the equator. 
At the foot of the table-land of Abyssinia the country is covered 
with dense tropical jungles, while the rest of the valley is rich 
soil, the detritus of the mountains for thousands of years. 

As the mean velocity of the Nile, when not in flood, is about 
two miles and a half an hour, a particle of water would take 
twenty-two days and a half to descend from the junction of the 
Takkazie to the sea ; hence, the retardation of the annual inun- 
dations of the Nile in its course is a pecuharity of this river, 
owing to some unknown cause towards its origin which affects 
the whole stream. In Abyssinia and Sennaar the river begins to 
swell in April, yet the flood is not sensible at Cairo till towards 
the summer solstice ; it then continues to rise about a hundred 
days, and remains at its greatest height till the middle of October, 
when it begins to subside, and arrives at its lowest point in April 
and May. The height of the flood in Upper Egypt varies from 
30 to 35 feet ; at Cairo it is 23, and in the northern part of the 
delta only 4 feet. 

Anubis, or Sirius, the Dog-star, Avas worshipped by the Egypt- 
ians, from its supposed influence on the rising of the Nile. Ac- 
cording to Champollion, their calendar commenced when the he- 
liacal rising of that star coincided with the summer solstice — the 
time at which the Nile began to swell at Cairo. Now this coin- 
cidence made the nearest approach to accuracy 3291 years before 
the Christian era ; and as the rising of the river still takes place 
precisely at the same time and in the same manner, it follows 
that the heat and periodical rains in Upper Ethiopia have not 
varied for 5000 years. In the time of Hipparchus, the summer 
solstice was in the sign of Leo, and probably about that period 
the flowing of the fountains from the mouths of lions of basalt and 
granite was adopted as emblematical of the pouring forth of the 
floods of the Nile. The emblem is still common in Rome, though 



THE NIGER. 223 

its origin is probably forgotten, and the signs of the Zodiac have 
moved backwards more than 30°. 

The two greatest African rivers, the Nile and the Niger, are 
dissimilar in almost every circumstance ; the Nile, discharging 
for ages into a sea, the centre of commerce and civihzation, has 
been renowned by the earliest historians, sacred and profane, for 
the exuberant fertility of its banks, and for the learning and wisdom 
of their inhabitants, who have left magnificent and imperishable 
monuments of their genius and power. Egypt was for ages the 
seat of science, and by the Red Sea it had intercourse with the 
most highly cultivated nations of the east from time immemorial. 
The Niger, on the contrary, though its rival in magnitude, and 
running through a country glowing with all the brilliancy of 
tropical vegetation, has ever been inhabited by barbarous or semi- 
barbarous nations; and its course till lately was little known, as 
its source still is. In earl}' ages, before the Pillars of Hercules 
had been passed, and indeed long afterwards, the Atlantic coast 
of Africa was an unknown region, and thus the flowing of the 
Niger into that lonely ocean kept the natives in their original 
rude state. Such are the effects of local circumstances on the 
intellectual advancement of man. 

The sources of the Niger, Joliba, or Q,uorra, are supposed to be 
on the northern side of the Kong Mountains, in the country of 
Bambarra, more than 1600 feet above the level of the sea. Fmm 
thence it runs north, and, after passing through Lake Debo, makes 
a wide circuit in the plains of Soudan to Timbuctoo through eight 
or nine degrees of latitude : then bending round, it again ap- 
proaches the Kong Mountains, at the distance 1000 miles in a 
straight line from its source ; and having threaded them, it flows 
across the low lands into the Gulf of Guinea, a course of 2300 
miles. In the plains of Soudan it receives many very large 
affluents from the high land of Senegambia on the west, and the 
Tchadda on the east — a navigable river larger than itself, probably 
the outlet of the great lake Tchad, which drains the high land of 
Komri, designated by the ancients as the Mountains of the Moon, 
and falls into it a little below Fundah, after a course of some 
hundred miles : thus, the Niger probably aflbrds an uninterrupted 
water-communication from the Atlantic to the heart of Africa.^^ 
Long before leaving the plains of Soudan it becomes a noble river 
with a smooth stream, gliding at the rate of from 5 to 8 miles an 
hour, varying in breadth from 1 to 8 miles. Its banks are studded 
with densely populous towns and villages, groves of palm-trees, 
and cultivated fields. 

This great river divides into three branches near the head of a 

>6 Captain W.Allen, R.N. 



224 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

delta which is equal in area to Ireland, intersected by navigable 
branches of the principal stream in every direction. The soil is 
rich mould, and the vegetation so rank that the trees seem to grow 
out of the water. The Nun, which is the principal or central 
branch, flows into the sea near Cape Formosa, and is that which 
the brothers Lander descended. There are, however, six rivers 
which run into the Bight of Benin, all communicating with the 
Niger, and with one another. The old Calabar is the most 
eastern ; it rises in the high land of Calbongos, and is united to 
the Niger by a natural canal. The Niger, throughout its long 
winding course, lies entirely within the tropic of Cancer, and is 
consequently subject to periodical inundations, which reach their 
greatest height in August, about 40 or 50 days after the summer 
solstice. The plains of Soudan are then covered with water 
and crowded by boats. These fertile regions are inaccessible to 
Europeans from the pernicious climate, and dangerous from the 
savage condition of many of the tribes. 

The coast of Guinea, west from the Niger, is watered by many 
streams, of no great magnitude, from the Kong Mountains. The 
table-land of Senegambia is the origin of the Rio Grande, the 
Gambia, the Senegal, and others of great size ; and also of many 
of an inferior order that fertiHze the luxuriant maritime plains on 
the Atlantic. Their navigable course is cut short by a semicir- 
cular chain of mountains which forms the boundary of the high 
land, through which they thread their way in rapids and cataracts. 
The Gambia rises in Foula Toro, and after a course of about 600 
miles enters the Atlantic by many branches connected by natural 
channels, supposed at one time to be separate rivers. The Sene- 
gal, the largest river in this part of Africa, ia 850 miles long. It 
receives many tributaries in the upper part of its course, and the 
lower is full of islands. It drains two lakes, has several tributaries, 
and is united to the basin of the Gambia by the river Neriko. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



Asiatic Rivers—Euphrates and Tigris — River Systems South of the 
Himalaya — Chinese Rivers — Siberian Rivers. 

The only river system of importance in Western Asia is that of 
the Euphrates and Tigris. In the basin of these celebrated 
streams, containing an area of 230,000 square miles, immense 
mounds of earth, in a desolate plain, point out the sites of some 
of the most celebrated cities of antiquity — of Nineveh and Babylon. 



EUPHRATES AND TIGRIS. 225 

Innumerable remains and inscriptions, the records of times very 
remote, have been discovered by adventurous travellers, and bear 
testimony to the truth of some of the most interesting pages of 
history. The Euphrates, and its affluent the Merad-Chai (sup- 
posed to be the stream forded, as the Euphrates, by the Ten 
Thousand in their retreat), rise in the heart of Armenia, and, after 
running 1800 miles on the table-land to 38° 41' of north latitude, 
they join the northern branch of the Euphrates, which rises in 
the Gheul Mountains, near Erzeroum. The whole river then 
descends in rapids through the Taurus chain, north of Romkala, 
to the plains of Mesopotamia. 

The Tigris rises in the mountains to the N. and W. of Dyar- 
bekir, and after receiving several tributaries from the high lands 
of Kurdistan, it pierces the Taurus range about 100 miles above 
Mosul, from whence it descends in a tortuous course through the 
plain of ancient Assyria, receiving many streams from the Tyari 
mountains, inhabited by the Nestorian Christians, and, farther 
south, from those of Luristan. The country through which it 
flows is rich in cornfields, date-groves, and forest-trees.^'' Near 
to the city of Bagdad the Tigris and Euphrates approach to 
within 12 miles, where they were once connected by two great 
canals. From this point they run nearly parallel for more than 
100 miles, encircling the plain of Babylon or Southern Mesopota- 
mia — the modern Irak-Arabi. The two rivers unite at Korna, 
and form one stream, which, under the name of Shat-el-Arab, 
runs for 150 miles before it falls into the Persian Gulf. The 
banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, once the seat of an extensive 
population, and of art, civilization, and industry, are now nearly 
deserted, covered with brushwood and grass, depeudent on the 
rains alone for that luxuriant vegetation which, under an admirable 
system of irrigation, formerly covered them. Excepting the large 

^■^ It is in the space comprised between two of the eastern tributaries 
of the Tigris, the Khaus and the Great Zab, or Abou Selman of the 
Arabs, that the extensive ruins of Koyunjik, Khorsabad, and especially 
of Nimroud, are situated, the last of which have been so satisfactorily 
identified with the capital of Assyria — the ancient Nineveh — by our 
enterprising and talented countryman Mr. Layard, to whose exertions, 
under circumstances of peculiar ditficulty, surrounded by every priva- 
tion, our national Museum is indebted for that magnificent collection 
of Assyrian monuments which at this moment forms the admiration of 
the British public. It is to be hoped that our Government will follow 
up the researches commenced by Mr. Layard, and that several of the 
gigantic sculptures removed by him, with such perseverance and labour, 
to Bussorah, will ere long be added to the riches of the British Museum. 

See Mr. Layard's work on "Nineveh and its Remains," 2 vols. 8vo., 
and his illustrated work in folio — the former one of the most interesting 
narratives ever published on the antiquities of Central Asia. 



226 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

centres of population, Bagdad and Mosul, the inhabitants consist 
of nomade Kurdish tribes. What remains of civilization has 
taken refuge in the mountains, where the few traces of primitive 
and most ancient Christianity, under the misapplied denomination 
of Nestorian Christians, are to be found in the Tyari range. The 
floods of the rivers are very regular in their period ; beginning in 
March, they attain their greatest height in June. 

The Persian Gulf may be navigated by steam all the year, the 
Euphrates only eight months ; it might, however, afford easy 
intercourse with eastern Asia, as it did in former times. The 
distance from Aleppo to Bombay by the Euphrates is 2870 miles, 
of which 2700, from Bir to Bombay, are by water ; in the time of 
Clueen Elizabeth this was the common route to India, and a fleet 
was then kept at Bir, expressly for that navigation. 

Six rivers of the first magnitude descend from the southern 
side of the table-land of eastern Asia and its mountain barriers, all 
different in origin, direction, and character, while they convey to 
the ocean a greater volumne of water than all the rivers of the 
rest of the continent conjointly. Of these, the Indus, the double 
system of the Ganges, and Brahmapootra, and the three parallel 
rivers in the Indo-Chinese peninsula, water the plains of southern 
Asia ; the great system of rivers that descend from the eastern 
terraces of the table-land irrigates the fertile lands of China ; and 
lastly, the Siberian rivers, not inferior to any in magnitude, carry 
the waters of the Altai and northern slope of the table-land to the 
Arctic Ocean. 

The hard-fought battles and splendid victories recently achieved 
by British valour over a bold and well-disciplined foe have added 
to the historical interest of the Indus and its tributary streams, 
now the boundaries of our Asiatic territories. 

The sources of the Indus were only ascertained in 1812; the 
Ladak, the largest branch of the Indus, has its origin in the snowy 
mountains of Karakorum ; and the Shyook, which is the smaller 
stream, rises in the Kentese or Gangri range, a ridge parallel to 
the Himalaya, which extends along the table-land of Tibet, north 
and west of the sacred lake of Manasarowar. These two streams 
join north-west of Ladak and form the Indus ; the Sutlej, its 
principal tributary, springs from the lake of Rakas Tal, which 
communicates with that of Manasarowar, both situated in a valley 
between the Himalaya and Gangri chain at the great elevation of 
15,200 feet. These rivers, fed by streams of melted snow from 
the northern side of the Himalaya, both flow westward along the 
extensive longitudinal valley of western Tibet. The Sutlej breaks 
through the Himalaya about the 75th meridian, and traverses the 
whole breadth of the chain, in frightful chasms and clefts in the 
rocks, to the plains of the Punjab ; the Indus, after continuing its 



THE GANGES. 227 

course on the table-land through several degrees of longitude 
farther, descends near the junction of the Himalaya and the Hin- 
doo Coosh, west of the valley of Cashmere, to the same plain. 
Three tributaries — the Jelum or Hydaspes, the Chenab or Aces- 
cines, and the Ravee or Hydraotes, all superior to the Rhone in 
size — flow from the southern face of the Himalaya, and with the 
Sutlej (the ancient Hyphasis) join the Indus before it reaches 
Mittun; hence the name Punjab, "the plain of the five rivers," 
now one of the most valuable countries in the East. From Mittun 
to the ocean, the Indus, like the Nile, does not receive a single 
accessary, from the same cause — the sterility of the country 
through which it passes. The Cabul river, which rises near 
Guzni, and is joined by a larger affluent from the southern de- 
clivities of the Hindoo Coosh, flows through picturesque and 
dangerous defiles, and joins the Indus at the town of Attock, and 
is the only tributary of any magnitude that comes from the west. 

The Indus is not favourable to navigation : for 70 miles after 
it leaves the mountains the descent in a boat is dangerous, and it 
is only navigable for steam-vessels of small draught of water ; 
yet, from the fertility of the Punjab, and the near approach of its 
basin to that of the Ganges at the foot of the mountains, it must 
ultimately be a valuable acquisition, and the more especially 
because it commands the principal roads between Persia and 
India, one through Cabul and Peshawer, and the other from Herat 
through Candahar. The delta of the Indus, formerly celebrated 
for its civihzation, has long been a desert ; but from the luxuri- 
ance of the soil, and the change of political circumstances, it may 
again resume its pristine aspect. It is 60 miles long, and pre- 
sents a face of 120 miles to the sea at the Gulf of Oman, where 
the river empties itself by many mouths, of which only three 
or four are navigable : one only can be entered by vessels of 50 
tons, and all are liable to change. The tide ascends them with 
extraordinary rapidity for 75 miles, and so great is the quantity 
of mud carried by it, and the absorbing violence of the eddies, 
that a vessel wrecked on the coast was buried in sand and mud 
in two tides. The annual floods begin with the melting of the 
snow in the Himalaya in the end of April, come to their height 
in July, and end in September. The length of this river is 1500 
miles, and it drains an area of 400,000 square miles. 

The second group of South Indian rivers, and one of the 
greatest, is the double system of the Ganges and Brahmapootra. 
These two rivers, though wide apart at their courses, have their 
sources little removed from each other, on opposite sides of the 
central ridge of the Himalaya, and which, converging to a com- 
mon delta, constitute one of the most important groups on the 
globe. 



228 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

Mr. Alexander Elliot, of the Body Guard in Bengal, son of 
Admiral Elliot, with his friends, are the first who have accom- 
plished the arduous expedition to the sources of the Ganges. 
The river flows at once in a very rapid stream not less than 40 
yards across, from a huge cave in a perpendicular wall of ice at 
the distance of about three marches from the Temple of Gungoo- 
tree, to which the pilgrims resort. Mr. Elliot says, " The view 
from the glacier was perfectly amazing ; beautiful or magnificent 
is no word for it, — it was really quite astonishing. If you could 
fancy a bird's-eye of all the mountains in the world in one cluster, 
and every one of them covered with snow, it would hardly give 
you an idea of the sight which presented itself." 

Many streams from the southern face of the Himalaya unite at 
Hurdwar to form the great body of the river. It flows from 
thence in a south-easterly direction through the plains of Bengal, 
receiving in its course the tribute of 19 or 20 rivers, of which 12 
are larger than the Rhine. About 220 miles in a direct line from 
the Bay of Bengal, into which the Ganges flows, the innumer- 
able channels and branches into which it splits form an intricate 
maze over a delta twice as large as that of the Nile. 

The Brahmapootra, a river equal in the volume of its waters to 
the Ganges, maybe considered as the continuation of the Dzangho 
Tchou or river of Lassa, which rises near the sources of the 
Sutlej and the Indus, in long. 82° E. After watering the great 
longitudinal valley of eastern Tibet, it makes a sudden bend to 
the south in long. 90° E., cutting through the Himalaya chain, 
as the Indus does at its opposite extremity between Iskasdo and 
Attock ; after which it receives sev^eral tributaries from the 
northern mountains of the Birman empire ; but very little is known 
of this part of its basin. The upper part of the Brahmapootra is 
parallel to the Himalaya chain, until it enters Upper Assam, 
where, passing through the sacred pool of Brahma-Koond, it 
receives the name which it bears in the lower part of its course — 
Brahmapootra, the "off'-spring of Brahma:" the natives call it 
the Lahit, Sanscrit for the "Red River." In Upper Assam, 
through which it winds 500 miles, and forms some extensive 
channel islands, it receives six very considerable accessories, of 
which the origin is unknown, though some are supposed to come 
from the table-land of Tibet. They are only navigable in the 
plains, but vessels of considerable burthen ascend the parent 
stream as far as Sundiva. Before it enters the plains of Bengal, 
below Goyalpara, the Brahmapootra runs with rapidity and in 
great volume, and, after receiving the rivers of Bhotan and other 
streams, branches of it unite with those of the Ganges about 40 
miles from the coast, but the two rivers enter the sea by difl^erent 
mouths, though they sometimes approach within two miles. The 



RIVERS OF SOUTHERN INDIA. 229 

length of the Brahmapootra is probably 860 miles, so that it is 500 
miles shorter than the Ganges: the volume of water discharged 
by it during the dry season is about 146,188 cubic feet in a second ; 
the quantity discharged by the Ganges in the same time, and 
under the same circumstances, is 80,000 cubic feet. In the peren- 
nial floods the quantity of water poured through the tributaries of 
the Brahmapootra from their snowy sources is incredible ; the 
plains of Upper Assam are an entire sheet of water from the 15th 
of June to the 15th of September, and there is no communication 
but by elevated causeways eight or ten feet high : the two rivers, 
with their branches, lay the plain of Bengal under water for hun- 
dreds of miles annually. They begin first to swell from the 
melting of the snow on the mountains, but, before their inferior 
streams overflow from that cause, all the lower parts of Bengal 
adjacent to the Ganges and Brahmapootra are under water from 
the swelling of these rivers by the rains. The increase is arrested 
before the middle of August, by the cessation of the rains in the 
mountains, though they continue to fall longer on the plains. 
The delta is traversed in every direction by arms of the rivers. 
The Hoogly branch, at all times navigable, passes Calcutta and 
Chandernagor ; and the Hauringotta arm is also navigable, as 
well as the Ganges, properly so called. The channels, however, 
are perpetually changing, from the strength of the current, and 
the prodigious quantity of matter washed from the high lands ; 
the Ganges alone carries to the sea 600,000 cubic feet of mud in 
a second, the efl^ects of which are perceptible 60 miles from the 
coast. The elevation of the mountains, and indeed of the land 
generally, must have been enormous, since it remains still so 
stupendous after ages of such degradation. The Sunderbunds, a 
congeries of innumerable river islands formed by i:he endless 
streams and narrow channels of the rivers, as well as by the 
indentations of arms of the sea, Hne the coast of Bengal for 180 
miles, a wilderness of jungle and heavy timber. The united 
streams of the Ganges and Brahmapootra drain an area of 650,000 
square miles, and there is scarcely a spot in Bengal more than 
20 miles distant from a river navigable even in the dry season. 

These three great rivers of Southern India do not differ more 
widely in their physical circumstances than in the races of men 
who inhabit their banks, yet from their position they seem formed 
to unite nations the most varied in their aspect and speech. The 
tributaries of the Ganges and Indus come so near to each other at 
the foot of the mountains, that a canal only two miles long would 
unite them, and thus an inland navigation from the Bay of Bengal 
to the Gulf of Oman might be established. 

An immense volume of water is poured in a series of nearly 
parallel rivers of great magnitude, and running in the direction of 
20 



230 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

the meridian through the Indo-Chinese peninsula, to empty 
themselves into the ocean on either side of the peninsula of 
Malacca. They rise in those elevated regions at the south- 
eastern angle of the table-land of Tibet, the lofty but unknown 
provinces of the Chinese empire, and water the great valleys 
that extend nearly from north to south w^ith perfect uniformity, 
between chains of mountains no less uniform, which spread out 
like a fan as they approach the sea. Scarcely anything is known 
of the origin or upper parts of these rivers, andj with a few excep- 
tions, almost as little of the lower. 

Their number amounts to six or seven, all large, though three 
surpass the rest — the Irawady, which waters the Birman empire, 
and falls into the Bay of Bengal at the Gulf of Martaban ; the 
Menam, or river of Siam ; and the river Cambodja, which flows 
through the empire of Annam : the last two fall into the Gulf 
of Siam and the China Sea. 

The sources of the Irawady are in the same chain of moun- 
tains with the eastern affluents of the Brahmapootra more to the 
south. Its course is through countries hardly known to Europeans, 
but it seems to be navigable by boats before coming to the city of 
Amarapoora, south of which it enters the finest and richest plain 
of the empire, containing its four capital cities. There it receives 
two large affluents, one from the Chinese province of Yun-nan, 
which flows into the Irawady at the city of Ava, 446 miles from 
the sea, the highest point attained by the British forces during 
the Burmese war. 

From Ava to its delta the Irawady is a magnificent river, more 
than four miles broad in some places, but encumbered with channel 
islands. In this part of its course it receives its largest tributary, 
and forms in its delta one of the most extensive systems of internal 
navigation. The Rangoon is the only one of its 14 mouths that 
is always navigable, and in it the commerce of the empire is con- 
centrated. The internal communication is extended by the junc- 
tion of the two most navigable deltoid branches with the rivers 
Saliiaen and Pegu by natural canals : that joining the former is 
200 miles long ; the canal uniting the latter is only navigable at 
high water. 

The Menam, one of the largest Asiatic rivers, is less known 
than the Irawady ; it comes from the Chinese province of Yun- 
nan, and runs through the kingdom of Siam, which it cuts into 
several islands by many diverging branches, and enters the Gulf 
of Siam by three principal arms, the most easterly of which forms 
the harbour of Bangkok. It is joined to the Menam Kong, or 
Cambodja, by the small river Anan-Myit. 

The river of Cambodja has the longest course of any in the 
peninsula : it is supposed to be the Lantsan-Kiang, which rises 



CHINESE RIVERS. 231 

in the high land of K'ham, in eastern Asia, not far from the sources 
of the great Chinese river, the Yang-tse-Kiang. After trans- 
versing the elevated plain of Yun-nan, where it is navigable, it 
rushes through the mountain barriers, and, on reaching a wider 
valley about 300 miles from its mouth, it is joined to the Menam 
by the natural canal of the Anan-Myit. More to the south it is 
said to split into branches which unite again. 

The ancient capital of Annam is situate on the Cambodja, 
about 150 miles from the sea; a little to the south its extensive 
delta begins, projects far into the ocean, and is cut in all directions 
by arms of the river, navigable during the floods ; three of its 
mouths are permanently so for large vessels up to the capital. 
The Saiing, more to the east, is much shorter than the Cambodja, 
though said to be 1000 miles long, but Europeans have not 
ascended higher than the town of Sai-gon. Near its mouth it sends 
off several iDranches to the eastern arm of the Cambodja. All 
rivers of this part of Asia are subject to periodical inundations, 
which fertilize the plains at the expense of the mountains. 

The parallelism of the mountain-chains constitutes formidable 
barriers between the upper basins of the Indo-Chinese rivers, and 
decided hnes of separation between the inhabitants of the inter- 
vening valleys ; but this inconvenience is in some degree com- 
pensated by the natural canals of junction and the extensive 
water communication towards the mouths of the rivers. 

Four great systems of rivers take their origin on the eastern 
declivity of the great table-land of central Asia, and running from 
west to east, traverse the Chinese empire: — the Hong-Kiang, 
which, rising in the province of Yun-nan, empties itself into the 
bay of Canton ; the Yang-tse-Kiang, or Son of the Ocean ; the 
Hoang-Ho ; and the great river of Amur. 

The length of the Hoang-FIo is 2000 miles, that of the Yang- 
tse-Kiang 2900. Though near their sources they are widely 
separated by the mountain-chains that border the table-land, they 
approach as they proceed on their eastern course, and are not 
more than 100 miles apart when they enter the Yellow Sea. 
From a map constructed by the Jesuit missionaries in the 18th 
century, it appears that the mouth of the Hoang-Ho or Yellow 
River has shifted to the enormous distance of 126 leagues from 
its former position. The Yang-tse-Kiang and the Yellow River, 
in the lower part of their course, are united by innumerable 
canals, forming the grandest system of irrigation and of internal 
navigation in existence. 

The Hoang-Ho brings down so large a quantity of earthy mat- 
ter to the sea, that, like the Tiber of old, it is called the " Yel- 
low" River. 

Strong tides ascend these rivers to the distance of 400 miles, 



232 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

and for the time prevent the descent of the fresh water, which 
forms large interior seas frequented by thousands of trading- 
vessels, and they irrigate the productive lands of central China, 
from time immemorial the most highly cultivated and the most 
densely-peopled region of the globe. 

Almost all the Chinese rivers of less note— and they are numer- 
ous — feed these giant streams, with the exception of the Ta-si or 
Hong-Kiang and the Pee-ho or White River, which have their 
own basins. The former, rising to the east of the town of Yun- 
nan, flows through the plains of Canton eastward to the Gulf of 
Canton, into which it discharges itself, increased in its course by 
the Sekiang. 

The White River, rising in the mountains near the Great Wall, 
becomes navigable a few miles east of Pekin, unites with the 
Eu-ho, joins the Great Canal, and, as the tide ascends it for 80 
miles, it is crowded with shipping. 

The Amur, the sources of which are partly in the Russian 
dominions, though its course is chiefly in the Mantchoo territory 
of China, is 2000 miles long, including its windings, and has a 
basin of 853,000 square miles. Almost all its tributaries come 
from that part of the Baikalian group called the Yablonnoi Khre- 
bit by the Russians, and Khing-Khan-Oola by the Chinese. The 
river Onon, which is the parent stream, has its origin in the 
Khentai Khan, a branch of the latter ; and though its course is 
through an uninhabited country, it is celebrated as being the 
birthplace and the scene of the exploits of Tshingis Khan. After 
passing through the lake of Dalai-nor, which is 210 miles in cir- 
cumference, it takes the name of Argun, and forms the boun- 
dary between the Chinese and Russians for 400 miles ; it is then 
joined by the Shilka, where it assumes the Tunguse name of the 
Amur or Great River : the Mandchoos call it the Sagalin or Black 
Water. It receives most of the unknown rivers which come from 
the mountain-slopes of the Great Gobi, and falls into the Pacific 
opposite to the island of Sagalin, after having traversed three 
degrees of latitude and thirty-three of longitude. 

Three great rivers, the Lena, the Yenessei, and the double 
system of the Irtish and Oby, not inferior in size to any of the 
rivers of Asia, carry off" the waters of the Altai chain, and of the 
mour^ains which bound the northern border of the great Asiatic 
table-land. The Lena, whose basin occupies 800,000 square 
miles, springs from mountains north of the Lake of Baikal, and 
runs north-east through more than half its course to the Siberian 
town of Yakutzk, the coldest town on the face of the earth, 
receiving in its course the Vitim and the Olekma, its two prin- 
cipal affluents, the former from the Baikal mountains, the latter 
from Stannovoi Khrebit, the most southerly part of the Aldan 



SIBERIAN RIVERS. 233 

range. North of Yakutzk, about the 63d degree of latitude, the 
Lena receives the Aldan, its greatest tributary, which also comes 
from the Stannovoi Khrebit ; it then goes to the Arctic Ocean, 
between banks of frozen mud, prodigious masses of which are 
hurled down by the summer floods, and bring to view the bones 
of those huge animals of extinct species which at some remote 
period had found their nourishment in these desert plains. The 
length of the Lena, including its windings, is 1900 miles. 

A difference in the pressure of the air has been observed on 
the banks of this river, on the shores of the Sea of Okhotzk, and 
at Kamchatka ; which indicates that in the distance of five 
degrees of latitude there is an apparent difference in the level of 
the sea amounting to 139 feet.^^ A similar phenomenon was 
observed by Captain Foster near Cape Horn, and by Sir James 
Ross throughout the South Polar Ocean. 

The Yenessei, a much larger river than the Lena, drains about 
1,000,000 square miles, and is formed by the union of the Great 
and Little Kem. The former rises at the junction of the Sayansk 
range, with the Baikalian mountains to the north-west of Lake 
Kassagol ; the latter comes from the Egtag or Little Altai, in 
quite an opposite direction, so that these two meet nearly at right 
angles, and take the name of Yenessei ; it then crosses the Saga- 
etses range in cataracts and rapids, entering the plains of Siberia 
below the town of Krasnojarsk. Below this many rivers join it, 
chiefly the Angara from the Lake Baikal ; but its greatest tribu- 
taries, the Upper and Lower Tunguska, both large rivers from 
the Baikalian mountains, join it lower dowm,the first to the south, 
the latter to the north of the town of Yeniseisk, whence it runs 
north to the Icy Ocean, there forming a large gulf, its length, 
measured along its bed, being 2500 miles. 

The Oby rises in the Lake of Toleskoi, " the Lake of Gold," 
in Great Tartary ; all the streams of the Lesser Altai unite to 
swell it and its great tributary the Irtish. The rivers which come 
from the northern declivity of the mountains go to the Oby, those 
from the western side to the Irtish, which springs from numerous 
streams on the south-western declivity of the Little Altai, and run 
westward into Lake Zaidzan, 200 miles in circumference. Issuing 
''om thence, it takes a westerly course to the plain on the north 
i f Semipolatinsk. In the plain it is joined by the Tobol, which 
;rosses the steppe of the Kirghiz Cossacks from the Ural Moun- 
tains, and soon unites with the Oby ; the joint stream then pro- 
ceeds to the Arctic Ocean in 67° N. lat. The Oby is 2000 miles 
long, and the basin of these two rivers occupies a third part of 
Siberia. 

18 M. Ermart. 
20* 



2S4 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

Before the Oby leaves the mountains, at a distance of 1200 
miles from the Arctic Ocean, its surface has an absolute eleva- 
tion of not more than 400 feet, and the Irtish, at the same dis- 
tance, is only 72 feet higher ; both are consequently sluggish. 
When the snow melts they cover the country like seas ; and as 
the inclination of the plains in the middle and lower parts of their 
course is not sufficient to carry off the water, those immense lakes 
and marshes are formed which characterize this portion of Siberia. 

The bed of the Oby is very deep, and there are no soundings 
at its mouth ; hence, the largest vessels might ascend at least to 
its junction with the Irtish. Its many affluents also might admit 
ships, did not the climate form an insurmountable obstacle the 
greater part of the year. Indeed all Siberian rivers are frozen 
annually for many months, and even the ocean along the Arctic 
coasts is rarely disencumbered from ice ; therefore these vast 
rivers never can be important as navigable streams ; but towards 
the mountains they afford water communication from the steppe 
of Issim to the Pacific. They abound in fish and water-fowl, for 
which the Siberian braves the extremest severity of the climate. 

Local circumstances have nowhere produced a greater differ- 
ence in the human race than in the basins of the great rivers 
north and south of the table-land of eastern Asia. The Indian, 
favoured by the finest climate, and a soil which produces the 
luxuries of life, insersected with rivers navigable at all seasons, 
and affording easy communication with the surrounding nations, 
attained early a high degree of civilization ; while the Siberian 
and Samoide, doomed to contend with the rigours of the polar 
blasts in order to obtain mere existence, have never risen beyond 
the lowest grade of humanity ; but custom softens the rigour of 
this stern life, so that even here a share of happiness is enjoyed. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

Kiver Systems of North America — Rivers of Central America — Rivers 
of South America and of Australia. 

North America is divided into four distinct water systems by the 
Rocky Mountains, the Alleghanies, and a table-land which con- 
tains the great lakes, and separates the rivers that flow into the 
Arctic Ocean from those which go to the Gulf of Mexico. This 
table-land, which is a level, nowhere more than 1200 or 1500 feet 
above the surface of the sea, is the watershed of the Mackenzie, 
the Mississippi, the St. Lawrence, and of the rivers that flow into 



THE MISSISSIPPI. 235 

Hudson's Bay. The St. Lawrence rises under the name of the 
St. Louis in 47° 43' N. lat. and 93° W. long. ; after joining the 
Lakes Superior, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, it issues from the last 
by the name of the Iroquois, and, expanding in its north-easterly 
course into Lakes St. Francis, St. Louis, and St. Peter, it is first 
known as the St. Lawrence at Montreal, from whence it runs 
north-east into the Atlantic, and ends in an estuary 100 miles 
wide. It has a basin of 297,600 square miles, of which 94,000 
are covered with water, exclusive of the many lesser lakes with 
which it is in communication. 

North of the watershed there is an endless and intricate laby- 
rinth of lakes and rivers, almost all connected with one another. 
But the principal streams of these Arctic lands are — the Great 
Fish River, which flows north-east in a continued series of dan- 
gerous and all but impassable rapids to the Arctic Ocean at Mel- 
ville Strait; the Copper-mine River, of much the same character, 
which, after traversing many lakes, enters the Icy Sea at George 
the Fourth's Gulf; and the Mackenzie River, a stream of greater 
magnitude, formed by the confluence of the Peace River and the 
Athabasca from the Rocky Mountains, which, after flowing north 
over 16 degrees of latitude, enters the Frozen Ocean in the Esqui- 
maux country beyond the Arctic Circle. All these rivers are 
frozen more than half the year, and the Mackenzie, in conse- 
quence of its length and direction from south to north, is subject 
to floods like the Siberian rivers, because its lower course remains 
frozen for several hundred miles long after the upper part is 
thawed, and the water, finding no outlet, flows over the ice and 
inundates the plains. 

South of the table-land the valley of the Mississippi extends 
for 1000 miles, and this greatest of North American rivers has 
its origin in the junction of streams from the small lakes Itaska 
and Ussawa, on the table-land at no greater height than 1500 feet 
above the sea. Before their junction these streams frequently 
spread out into sheets of water, and the Mississippi does the 
same in the upper part of its course. This river flows from north 
to south through more degrees of latitude than any other, and 
receives so many tributaries of the higher orders that it would be 
difficult even to name them. Among those that swell its volume 
from the Rocky Mountains, the Missouri, the Arkansas, and the 
Red River are the largest, each being in itself a mighty stream, 
receiving tributaries without number. Before their junction the 
Missouri is a stream much superior to the Mississippi both in 
length and volume, and has many affluents larger than the Rhine. 
It rises in about 44° N. lat., and runs partly in a longitudinal 
valley of the Rocky Mountains, and partly at their foot, and 
drains the whole of the country on the right bank of the Missis- 



236 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

sippi between the 49th and 40th parallels of north latitude. It 
descends in cataracts through the mountain regions, and in the 
plains it sometimes passes through large prairies and sometimes 
through dense forests, in all accomplishing 3000 miles in a very- 
tortuous and generally south-eastern direction till it joins the Mis- 
sissippi near the town of St. Louis. Lower down, the Missis- 
sippi is joined by the Arkansas, 2000 miles long, with many 
tributaries, and then by the Red River, the former from the 
Rocky Mountains ; the latter, which rises in the table-land of 
New Mexico, is fed by rivers from the Sierra del Sacramento, 
and enters the main stream not from the beginning of the delta, 
at the head of which the Mississippi sends off a large branch 
called the Atchafalaya to the south, and then turning to the east 
it discharges itself by five mouths at the extremity of a long 
tongue of land which stretches 50 miles into the Gulf of Mexico, 
having formed a delta considerably larger than that of the Nile. 
The shore is lined with shallow salt lagoons ; the greater part of 
the delta is covered with water and unhealthy marshes, the abode 
of the alligator, and during the floods it is a muddy sea. This 
river is navigable for 2240 miles. Its valley is of variable width, 
but at its greatest width, at the junction of the White River, it is 
80 miles. 

The tributaries from the Rocky Mountains, though much longer, 
run through countries of less promise than those which are tra- 
versed by the Ohio and the other rivers that flow into the Missis- 
sippi on the east, which offer advantages unrivalled even in this 
wonderful country, only beginning to be developed. 

The Ohio is formed by the union of the rivers Alleghany and 
Monongahela, the latter from the Laurel ridge of the Alleghany 
chain in Virginia; the former comes from sources near Lake Erie, 
and the two unite at Pittsburg, from whence the river winds 948 
miles through some of the finest statQs of the Union, till its junction 
with the Mississippi, having received many accessories, six of 
which are navigable streams. There are some obstacles to navi- 
gation in the Ohio, but they have been avoided by canals. Other 
canals join both the Mississippi and its branches with Lake Erie, 
so that there is an internal water communication between the St. 
Lawrence and the Gulf of Mexico. The whole length of the Mis- 
sissippi is 3160 miles, but, if the Missouri be considered the main 
stem, it is 4265, and the joint stream drains an area of about a mil- 
lion and a quarter of square miles. The breadth of the river no- 
where corresponds with its length. At the confluence of the Mis- 
souri each river is half a mile wide, and after the junction of the 
Ohio it is not more. A steamer may ascend the Mississippi for 
2000 miles from Balize without any perceptible difference in its 
breadth. The depth is 168 feet where it enters the Gulf of Mexico 



CENTRAL AMERICAN RIVERS. 237 

at New Orleans : the fall of the river at Cape Girardeau is four 
inches in a mile. This river is a rapid desolating torrent loaded 
with mud; its violent floods, from the mehing of the snow in the 
high latitudes, sweep away whole forests, by which the navigation 
is rendered very dangerous, and the trees, being matted together 
in masses many yards thick, are carried down by the spring floods, 
and deposited over the delta and Gulf of Mexico for hundreds of 
square miles. 

North America can boast of two other great water systems, one 
from the eastern versant of the Alleghanies, which flows into the 
Atlantic, and another from the western versant of the Rocky Moun- 
tains, which runs into the Pacific. 

All the streams that flow eastward through the United States to 
the Atlantic are short, and comparatively small, but of the highest 
utility, because many of them, especially those to the north, end 
in gulfs of vast magnitude, and the whole are so united by canals 
that few places are not accessible by water — one of the greatest 
advantages a country can possess. There are at least 24 canals 
in the United States, the [aggregate] length of which is 3101 
miles. 

Many of the streams which ultimately come to the Atlantic rise 
in the western ridges of the Alleghany chain, and traverse its longi- 
tudinal valleys before leaving the mountains to cross the Atlantic 
slope, which terminates in a precipitous ledge for 300 miles parallel 
to the range. By falling over this rocky barrier in long rapids 
and picturesque cascades they afford an enormous and extensive 
water-power ; and as the rivers are navigable from the Atlantic 
quite across the maritime plains, these two circumstances have 
determined the location of most of the principal cities of the United 
States at the foot of this rocky ledge, which, though not more than 
300 feet high, has had a greater influence on the political and 
commercial interests of the Union than the highest chains of moun- 
tains have had in other countries. The Hudson in the north is 
navigable to Albany ; the Delaware and Susquehanna, ending in 
bays, are important rivers ; and the Potomac, which falls into 
Chesapeake Bay, passes Washington, the capital of the United 
States, to which the largest ships can ascend. 

The watershed of the Rocky Mountains lies at a greater distance 
from the Pacific than that of the Alleghanies from the Atlantic; 
consequently the rivers are longer, but they are few, and little 
known ; the largest are, the Oregon or Colombia, and the Rio 
Colorado. The former has its sources not far from those of the 
Missouri and of the Rio del Norte; and after an exceedingly tor- 
tuous source, in which it receives many tributaries, it falls into the 
Pacific at Astoria. The Colorado is a Mexican stream, which 
comes from the Sierra Verde and falls into the Gulf of California. 



238 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

The Sacramento with its tributaries, a Californian stream, lying 
between the two, and mueh inferior to either, has been brought 
into notice of late from the extensive and rich auriferous country- 
through which it flows in its course to the Bay of San Francisco 
on the Pacific. 

On the table-land of Mexico there is a basin of continental 
streams, which, rising from springs on the eastern side of the 
Sierra Madre, and fed by the periodical rains, flow northward and 
terminate in lakes, which part with their superfluous water by 
evaporation. Of these, the Rio Grande, which, after a course of 
300 miles, falls into the Parras, is the greatest. 

The largest river in the isthmus of Mexico is the Rio de Lerma 
or Rio Grande Santiago, which rises on the table-land of Toluca, 
passes through Lake Chapala, forms numerous cascades, and falls 
into the Pacific after a course of 400 miles. There are many 
streams in Central America, and above 10 rivers that are naviga- 
ble for some miles ; six of these fall into the Gulf of Mexico and 
Caribbean Sea, and four into the Pacific. Of these, the Guasa- 
cualco, which traverses the Isthmus nearly from sea to sea, and 
which has by some been considered as the best point for a sea canal 
between the two oceans, and the Montagua, which rises in the 
mountains near Guatemala: the first empties itself into the Gulf 
of Mexico, whilst the second flows into the Gulf of Honduras, and 
has a long line of navigation. 

In the southern part of the State of Guatemala is situated the 
River of San Juan, which drains the Lakes of Nicaragua and 
Leon, and by which it is supposed a water communication could 
be easily effected between the Atlantic and the Pacific. 

The Andes, the extensive watershed of South America, are so 
close to the sea, that there are no rivers of considerable size which 
empty themselves into the Pacific; even some of the streams that 
rise in the western Cordilleras find their way to the eastern plains. 

The Magdalena, at the northern end of the Andes, though a 
secondary river in America, is 620 miles long. It rises in the 
central chain, at the divergence of the Cordilleras of Suma Paz 
and Q,uindiu, and enters the Caribbean Sea by various channels; 
it is navigable as far as Honda. The Cauca, its only feeder on 
the left, comes from Popayan, and is nearly as large as its pri- 
mary, to which it runs parallel the greater part of its course. 
Many streams join the Magdalena on the right, as the stream 
which waters the elevated plain of Bogota, and forms the cataract 
of Tequendama, one of the most beautiful and wildest scenes in 
the Andes* The river rushes through a chasm 30 feet wide, which 
appears to have been formed by an earthquake, and at a double 
bound descends 530 feet into a dark gloomy pool, illuminated only 
at noon by a few feeble rays. A dense cloud of vapour rising from 



SOUTH AMERICAN RIVERS. 239 

it is visible at the distance of 15 miles. At the top the vegetation 
is that of a temperate climate, while palms grow at the bottom. 

The river Atrato, parallel to theCauca and Magdalena, but less 
considerable, empties itself into the Gulf of Darien. The rivers 
of Patia, of San Juan, of Las Esmeraldas, and of Guyaquil, ail rise 
on the western declivity of the Andes to flow into the Pacific. 
With these exceptions, all the water from the inexhaustible sources 
of the Andes north of Chile is poured into the Orinoco, the River 
of the Amazons, and the Rio de la Plata, which convey it eastward 
across the continent to the Atlantic. In the far south, indeed, there 
are the Colorado and Rio Negro, but they are insignificant when 
compared with these giant floods. 

The basins of these three rivers are separated in their lower 
parts by the mountains and high lands of the Parima and Brazil; 
but the central parts of the basins of all three, toward the foot of 
the Andes, form an extensive level, and are only divided from one 
another by imperceptible elevations in the plains, barely sufficient 
to form the watersheds between the tributaries of these majestic 
rivers. This pecuhar structure is the cause of the natural canal 
of the Cassiquiare, which joins the Upper Orinoco with the Rio 
Negro, a principal affluent of the Amazons. Ages hence, when 
the wilds are inhabited by civilized man, the tributaries of these 
three great rivers, many of which are navigable to the foot of the 
Andes, will, by means of canals, form a water system infinitely 
superior to any that now exists. 

The Orinoco, altogether a Colombian river, rises in the Sierra 
del Parima, 200 miles east of the elevated Peak of Duida, and 
maintains a westerly course to San Fernando de Atabapo, where 
it receives the Atabapo, and Guaviare, which is larger than the 
Danube; here ends the Upper Orinoco. The river then forces a 
passage through the Sierra del Parima, and runs due north for 
three degrees of latitude, between banks almost inaccessible; its 
bed is traversed by dykes, and filled with boulders of granite and 
islands clothed with a variety of magnificent palm-trees. Large 
portions of the river are here engulfed in crevices, forming subter- 
ranean cascades ; and in this part are the celebrated falls of the 
Atures and Apures, 36 miles apart, which are heard at the dis- 
tance of many miles. At the end of this tumultuous part of its 
course it is joined by the Meta, and farther north by the Apure, 
two very large rivers, which drain the whole eastern side of the 
Andes in an extent of 10 degrees of latitude, and then runs east- 
ward to its mouth, where it forms an extensive delta and enters the 
Atlantic by many channels. As the Upper Orinoco runs west, 
and the Lower Orinoco east, it makes a complete circuit round the 
Parima mountains, so that its mouth is only two degrees distant 
from the meridian of its sources. 



240 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

The Cassiquiare leaves the Orinoco near the south base of the 
Peak of Duida, and joins the Rio Negro, a chief tributary of the 
Amazons, at the distance of 180 miles. 

The Orinoco is navigable for 1000 miles at all seasons; a fleet 
might ascend it from the Dragon's Mouth to within 45 miles of 
Santa Fe de Bogota. It receives many navigable rivers, of which 
the Guaviare, the Atures, and the Meta are each larger than the 
Danube. The Meta may be ascended to the foot of the Andes ; 
its mean depth is 86 feet, and in many places 80 or 90. It rises 
so high in the Andes that Baron Humboldt says the vegetable pro- 
ductions at its source differ as much from those at its confluence 
with the Orinoco, though in the same latitude, as the vegetation 
of France does from that of Senegal. The larger feeders of the 
Orinoco come from the Andes, though many descend to it from 
both sides of the Parima, in consequence of its long circuit among 
these m.ountains. 

The basin of the Orinoco has an area of 300,000 square miles, 
of which the upper part is impenetrable forest, the lower is Llanos. 

The floods of the Orinoco, like those of all rivers entirely within 
the torrid zone, are very regular, and attain their height nearly at 
the same time with those of the Ganges, the Niger, and the Gam- 
bia. They begin to swell about the 25th of March, and arrive at 
their full and begin to decrease on the 25th of August. The inun- 
dations are very great, owing to the quantity of rain that falls in 
the wooded regions, which exceeds 100 inches in a year. 

Below the confluence of the Apure the river is three miles and 
a quarter broad, but during the floods it is three times as much. 
By the confluence of four of its greatest tributaries at the point at 
which it bends to the east, a low inland delta is formed, in conse- 
quence of which 8600 square miles of the plain are under water 
during the inundation. The Orinoco in many places smells of 
musk, from the number of dead crocodiles. 

Upper Peru is the cradle of the Amazons, the greatest of rivers, 
which drains the chain of the Andes from the equator to the 20th 
parallel of southern latitude. Its highest branch, which bears the 
name of Maranon, issues in two streams from the Lake of Lauri- 
cocha in the plain of Bombon, at a great elevation in the Andes : 
it runs in a deep longitudinal valley from south to north, till it 
bursts through the eastern ridge at the Pongo de Manseriche, 
near the town of San Borja, from whence it follows an uniform 
eastern course of nearly 4000 miles including its windings, till it 
reaches the Atlantic. West of San Borja, and on its southern 
bank, it receives the Huallaga and Yucayali, the latter a river of 
great size which rises in the Andes of Vilcanota, S. of Cuseo, 
where its source was visited and its position determined by Mr. 
Pentland. The Amazons is suppjDsed to drain an area of two 



SOUTH AMERICAN RIVERS. 241 

millions and a half of square miles, which is ten times the size of 
France. In some places it has a great depth ; it is navigable 
2200 miles from its source, and is 96 miles wide at its mouth. 

The name of the river is three times changed in its course : it 
is known as the Maranon from its source to the confluence of the 
Yucayali ; from that point to its junction with the Rio Negro, it 
is called the Solimoes ; and from the Rio Negro till it enters the 
ocean it is the River of the Amazons. 

The number, length, and volume of its tributaries are in pro- 
portion to its magnitude ; even the affluents of its affluents are 
noble streams. More than 20 superb rivers, navigable almost to 
their sources, pour their waters into it, and streams of less import- 
ance are numberless. Two of the largest are the Huallaga and 
the Yucayali : like their primary, the former has its origin in the 
mining district of Pasco, and after a long northern course between 
the Cordilleras it breaks through a gorge similar to that of Man- 
seriche and joins the Maranon in the plains ; it is almost a mile 
broad above its junction. The Spanish governor of Peru sent 
Pedro de Orsoa down this river in the year 1560 to search for 
the Lake of Parima and the city of El Dorado. The Yucayah, 
not inferior to the Maranon itself, is believed by some eminent 
geographers to be the true Maraiion. In a course of 1080 miles 
it is fed by accessaries from a wide extent of country, and at its 
junction with the main stream, near the mission of San Joaquin 
de Omaguas, a line of 50 fathoms does not reach the bottom, and 
in breadth it is more like a sea than a river. B}'^ these streams 
there is access to Peru, and there is communication between the 
Amazons and the most distant regions around by other navigable 
feeders. Nothing is knovv^n of the rivers that empty themselves 
into the Amazon on its southern bank, between the Yucayali and 
the Madeira ; the latter, which is its greatest affluent, comes near 
the sources of the Paraguay, the principal accessary of the Rio 
de la Plata. The River of the Amazons is not less extensively 
connected on the north. The high lands of Colombia are acces- 
sible by the Putumayo, the Japura, and other great navigable 
rivers ; the Rio Negro, nearly nine miles broad, a little way 
above its junction with the Amazons, unites it with the Orinoco 
by the Cassiquiare ; and lastly, the sources of the Rio Branco 
come very near to those of the Essequibo, an independent river 
of Dcmerara. 

The main stream, from its mouth nearly throughout its length, 
is full of river islands, and most of its tributaries have deltoid 
branches at their junction with it. The annual floods of the 
Amazons are less regular than those of the Orinoco, and, as the 
two rivers are in different hemispheres, they occur at opposite 
seasons. The Amazons begins to rise in December, is at its 
21 



242 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

greatest height in March, and its least in July and August. The 
quantity of rain that falls in the deep forests traversed by this 
river is so great that, were it not for the enormous evaporation, 
and the streams that carry it off, the country would be flooded 
annually to the depth of eight feet. The Amazons is divided 
into two branches as its mouth, of which one joins the Para south 
of the island of Das Joanes or Marajo, the other enters the ocean 
to the north of it. 

The water of some of the rivers in equatorial America is white ; 
in others it is of a deep coffee-colour, or dark green when seen in 
the shade, but perfectly transparent, and, when ruffled by a breeze, 
of a vivid green like some of the Swiss lakes. In Scotland, the 
brown waters come from peat-mosses ; but it is not so in America, 
since they occur as often in forests as in savannahs. Sir Robert 
Schomburgk thinks they are stained by the iron in the granite ; 
however, the colouring matter has not been chemically ascer- 
tained. The Orinoco and the Cassiquiare are white ; Rio Negro, 
as its name implies, is black, yet the water does not stain the 
rocks, which are of a dazzling white. Black waters are some- 
times, though rarely, found on the table-lands of the Andes. 

The Rio de la Plata forms the third great water system of 
South America. The Rio Grande, its principal stream, rises in 
the mountains of Minas Geraes, in Brazil, and runs 500 miles on 
the table-laiid from north to south before it takes the name of 
Parana. For more than 100 miles it is a continued series of 
cataracts and rapids, the greatest of which, the Salta Grande, is 
in about 24° 5' lat. Above the fall the river is three miles broad, 
when all at once it is confined in a rocky pass only 60 yards 
wide, through which it rushes over a ledge with thunderous 
noise, heard at the distance of many miles. The Parana receives 
three large rivers on the right — the Paraguay, the Pilcomayo, 
and the Vermejo : all generally tend to the south, and unite at 
different distances before entering their primary at Corrientes. 
The Paraguay, 1200 miles long, is the finest of these : in its 
upper part it is singularly picturesque, adorned with palms and 
other tropical vegetation, and its channel islands are covered with 
orange-groves. It springs from a chain of seven lakes, on the 
southern slopes of the Campos Parecis, in Brazil, and may be 
ascended by vessels of considerable burthen through nineteen 
degrees of latitude. The Pilcomayo and Vermejo both come 
from BoHvia ; the former traverses the desert of the Gran Chaco, 
the latter the district of Tarija. At Santa Fe the La Plata turns 
eastward, and before entering the Atlantic is augmented by the 
Uruguay from the north, which takes its name from the turbulence 
of its streams. 

The Rio de la Plata is 2700 miles long, and for 200 miles from 



SOUTH AMERICAN RIVERS. 243 

its mouth, up to Buenos Ayres, it is never less than 170 miles 
broad. Were it not for the freshness of its water it might be 
mistaken for the ocean : it is, however, shallow, and loaded with 
mud, which stains the Atlantic for 200 miles from its mouth. 

The Paraguay is subject to dreadful floods. In 1812 the at- 
mosphere was poisoned by the putrid carcases of drowned ani- 
mals. The ordinary annual inundations of the Parana, the prin- 
cipal or upper branch of the La Plata, cover 36,000 square miles. 

In consequence of the vast extent of the very level plains along 
the base of the Andes, the basins of the three great rivers are ap- 
parently united. So small are the elevations that determine their 
direction, that, with the exception of a portage of three miles, a 
vessel might sail from Buenos Ayres in 35° S. lat. to the mouth 
of the Orinoco in 9° N. lat. by inland navigation. 

The Colorado, which runs in a long shallow stream through 
the Pampas of Buenos Ayres to the Atlantic, is formed of two 
principal branches, one from the west, and the other from the 
north, which unite at a great distance from the Atlantic, into 
which the river fiovi^s. 

The Rio Negro or Cusu-debu rises at a great elevation, and 
separates the Pampas from Patagonia. In its long course through 
arid deserts to the Atlantic it does not receive a single adjunct, 
but it forms a communication between that ocean and Chile, as 
it reaches a pass in the Andes that is free from snow. There is 
some vegetation in its immediate neighbourhood ; it has a bar at 
its mouth, and is navigable only for four miles above Carmen ; it 
has floods twice in the year, one from the rains, the other from 
the melting of the snow in the Andes. 

Some other streams from the Chilian Andes run through, but 
do not fertihze, the desolate plains of Patagonia. 

There are various rivers in South America, unconnected with 
those described, which in any other country would be esteemed 
of a high order. Of many which descend from the mountains of 
Guiana, the Essequibo is the largest ; its general width is a mile 
and a quarter; its water, though black, is transparent; and on its 
banks and those of all its adjuncts the forest reigns in impenetra- 
ble thickness. It rises in the Sierra Acaray, which separates its 
basin from that of the Amazons, and, after a northerly course, falls 
into the Atlantic near 7° N. lat. by an outlet 14 miles broad, 
separated by three low islands into four branches. Sir Robert 
Schomburgk, whose scientific journeys have made us acquainted 
with a country of which so little was known, has shown that, by 
cutting a canal three miles long between the Madeira and Guapore, 
an affluent of the Mamore, an inland navigation might be opened 
from Demerara to Buenos Ayres, over an extent of 42 degrees of 
latitude, with the exception of a portage of only 800 yards in the 



244 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

rainy season between Lake Amucu and the duatata, a branch of 
the Rupununi, which flows into the Essequibo. Bat that is not 
the only water coimnuni cation between Guayana and remote 
countries, great though the distance be, for the Napo, a tributary 
of the Sohmoes, offers communication with Gluito, the Huallaga 
with Peru and countries not far distant from the Pacific Ocean. 
By the Rio Negro, the Orinoco, the Cassiquiare, and its tributary 
the Meta, there is uninterrupted navigation to New Granada and 
to within eight miles of Santa Fe de Bogota. "If," says the dis- 
tinguished traveller already mentioned, "British Guayana did not 
possess the fertility which is such a distinguishing feature, this 
water communication alone would render it of vast importance ; 
but, blessed as it is with abundant fruitfulness, this extensive 
inland navigation heightens its value as a British colony ; and, if 
emigration sufficient to make its resources available were properly 
directed thither, the port of Demerara would rival any in the vast 
continent of South America." It is certainly very remarkable 
that the tide of emigration has never set towards a country of such 
promise, abounding in valuable natural productions, and so much 
nearer to Great Btitain than her colonies in the Pacific. 

The Para and San Francisco are the chief Brazilian rivers : 
both rise on the table-land ; the former results from the union of the 
Tocantins and Araguay ; it descends from the high lands in rapids 
in its northerly course, and, after running 1500 miles, joins the 
southern branch of the Amazons before entering the Atlantic 
south of the island of Marajo. The San Francisco is only 1275 
miles long : it rises in the Sierra Canastra in the province of 
Minas Geraes, and, after traveUing northward between mountain 
ranges parallel to the coast, it breaks through them and reaches 
the ocean about the 11th degree of S. lat. As in the Appalachian 
chain, so here, many rivers come down the edge of the table-land 
to the level maritime plains of the Atlantic. 

The historical renown and the high civilization of Asia and 
Europe, their great wealth and population, may be attributed in a 
very great degree to the facility of transport afforded by their ad- 
mirable river systems, and still more to the genius of the people who 
knew how to avail themselves of them ; the same may be said of 
the inhabitants of the United States of America, while the Indians 
who have possessed these countries for ages never took advantage 
of the noble streams with which Providence had enriched and 
embeUished them. 

RIVERS OF NEW HOLLAND. 

After America, the land of the river and the flood. New Hol- 
land appears in more than its usual aridity. The absence of 



LAKES. 245 

large rivers is one of the greatest impediments to the improve- 
ment of this continent. What it may possess in the interior is 
not known, but it is certain that no large river discharges its 
water into the ocean, and most of the small ones are absorbed 
before they reach it. 

The streams from the mountains on the eastern side of the con- 
tinent are mere torrents, and would have short courses did they 
not run in longitudinal valleys, as, for example, the Hawkesbury. 
The Murumbidgee, the Lachlan, and the Macquarrie, formed by 
the accumulation of mountain-torrents, are the largest. 

The Murumbidgee rises in the ranges west of St. George's 
Lake, and, running south-west, meets the Lachlan, of unknown 
origin, coming from the east. After their junction they run into 
the Murray, a much larger stream, though only 350 feet broad, 
and not more than 20 feet deep : before entering the ocean in 
Encounter Bay, it passes through the Alexandrine Marsh : it is 
too shallow even for boats. The Darling is supposed to be 
merely the upper part of the Murray, probably rising towards 
the head of St. Vincent's Gulf. The origin of the JVIacquarrie 
is unknown : it is called the Fish River between Bathurst and 
Sydney; after running 600 miles north-west it is lost in the 
marshes. 

Swan River, on the western side of the continent, has much 
the same character; and from that river to the Gulf of Carpenta- 
ria, along the whole of the western and northern shores of the 
continent, there are none. The want of water makes it hardly 
possible to explore the interior of this continent. No country 
stands more in need of a complete system of irrigation, which 
could easily be accomplished from the nature of the -rivers, which 
lie in deep channels, and might be converted into canals by dams, 
from whence the water might be conveyed by channels over the 
surrounding country, as in Lombardy. 



CHAPTER XX. 



Lakes-— Northern System of the Great Continent— Mountain System of 
the same — American Lakes. 

The hollows formed on the surface of the earth by the ground 
sinking or rising, earthquakes, streams of lava, craters of extinct 
volcanos, the intersection of strata, and those that occur along the 
edges of the diiferent formations, are generally filled with water, 
21* 



246 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

and constitute systems of lakes, some salt and some fresh. Many 
of the former may be remnants of an ancient ocean left in 
the depressions of its beds during its retreat as the continent 
arose. 

Almost all lakes are fed by springs in their beds, and they are 
occasionally the sources of the largest rivers. Some have neither 
tributaries nor outlets; the greater number have both. The 
quantity of water in lakes varies with the seasons everywhere, 
especially from the melting snow on mountain-chains and in high 
latitudes, and from periodical rains, between the tropics. Small 
lakes occur in mountain-passes, formed by water which runs 
into them from the commanding peaks ; they are frequently, as 
in the Alps, very transparent, of a bright green or azure hue. 
Large lakes are common on table-lands, and in the valleys of 
mountainous countries, but the largest are on extensive plains. 
The basin of a lake comprehends all the land drained by it ; con- 
sequently it is bounded by an imaginary hne passing through the 
sources of all the waters that fall into it. 

There are more lakes in high than in low latitudes, because 
evaporation is much greater in low latitudes than in high, and 
m this respect there is a great analogy between the northern 
plains of the two principal continents. Sheets of water of great 
beauty occur in the mountain valleys of the British islands, 
of Norway, and Sweden, countries similar in geological struc- 
ture ; and besides these there are two regions in the old world in 
Mrhich lakes particularly abound. One begins on the low coast of 
Holland, goes round the southern and eastern sides of the Baltic, 
often passing close to its shores, along the Gulf of Bothnia, and 
through the Siberian plains to Behring's Straits. The lakes 
which cover so much of Finland and the great lakes of Ladoga 
and Onega lie in a parallel direction; they occupy transverse 
rents which had taken place across the palseozoic strata, while 
rising in a direction from S.W. to N.E., between the Gulf of 
Finland and the White Sea ; that elevation was, perhaps, the 
cause of the cavities now occupied by these two seas. Ladoga 
is the largest lake in this zone, having a surface of nearly 1000 
square miles. It receives tributary streams, and sends off its 
superfluous water by rivers, and Onega does the same ; but the 
multitude of small steppe lakes among the Ural mountains and 
in the basin of the river Obi neither receive nor emit rivers, being 
for the most part mere ponds, though of great size, some of fresh 
and some of salt water, lying close together — a circumstance 
which has not been accounted for : those on the low Siberian 
plains have the same character. 

The second system of lakes in the old continent follows the 
zone of the mountain mass, and comprehends those of the Pyre- 



ASIATIC LAKES. 247 

nees, Alps, Apennines, Asia Minor, the Caspian, the Lake Aral, 
together with those on the table-land and in the mountains of 
central Asia. 

In the Pyrenees, lakes are most frequent on the French side ; 
many are at such altitudes as to be perpetually frozen : one on 
Mont Perdu, 8393 feet above the sea, has the appearance of 
an ancient volcanic crater. There is scarcely a valley in the 
Alpine range and its offsets that has not a sheet of water, no 
doubt owing to the cavities formed during the elevation of the 
ridges, and, in some instances, to subsidence of the soil ; Lake 
Trub, 7200 feet above the level of the sea, is the most elevated. 
There are more lakes on the north than on the south side of the 
Alps — the German valleys are full of them, In Bohemia, Gallicia, 
and Moravia, there are no less than 30,000 sheets of water, 
besides great numbers throughout the Austrian empire. 

Of the principal lakes on the northern side of the Alps, the 
Lake of Geneva, or Lake Leman, is the most beautiful from its 
situation, the pure azure of the waters, and the sublime moun- 
tains that surround it. Its surface, of about 240 square miles, is 
1150 feet above the sea, and near Meillerieit is 1012 deep. The 
lake of Lucerne is 1400 feet above the sea, and the lakes of Brienz 
1900 feet. The Italian Lakes are at a lower level ; the Lago 
Maggiore has only 678 feet of absolute altitude ; they are larger 
than most of those on the north of the Alps, and, with the advan- 
tage of an Italian climate, sky, and vegetation, they surpass the 
others in beauty, though the mountains that surround them are 
less lofty. 

These great lakes are fed by rivers rising in the glaciers of the 
higher Alps, and many large rivers issue from th&m. In this 
respect they differ from most of the lakes in Lower Italy, some 
of which are craters of ancient volcanos, or perhaps ancient craters 
of elevation, where the earth had been swelled up by subter- 
ranean vapour without bursting, and had sunk down again into a 
hollow when the internal pressure was removed. 

In Syria, the Lake of Tiberias and the Dead Sea, sacred 
memorials to the Christian world, are situate in the deepest 
cavity on the earth. The surface of the Lake Tiberias is 329 
feet below the level of the Mediterranean, surrounded by verdant 
plains bearing aromatic shrubs ; while the heavy bitter waters of 
the Dead Sea, 1312 feet below the level of the Mediterranean, is 
a scene of indescribable desolation and solitude, encompassed by 
desert sands, and bleak, stony, salt hills. Thus, there is a dif- 
ference of level of 983 feet in little more than GO miles, which 
makes the course of the river Jordan very rapid. The water of 
the Dead Sea is so acrid, from the large proportion of saline mat- 
ter it contains, that it irritates the skin : it is more buoyant, and 



248 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

has a greater proportion of salt, than any that is known except 
the small lake of Ekonsk east of the Volga.^^ 

Though extensive sheets of water exist in many parts of 
Asia Minor, especially in Bithynia, yet the characteristic feature 
of the country, and of all the table-land of western Asia and the 
adjacent steppes, is the number and magnitude of the saline lakes. 
A region of salt lakes and marshes extends at least 200 miles 
along the northern foot of the Taurus range, on a very elevated 
part of the table-land of Anatolia. There are also many detached 
lakes, some exceedingly saline. Fish cannot live in the Lake of 
Toozla ; it is shallow, and subject to excessive evaporation. 
Neither can any animal exist in the Lake of Shahee or Urmiah, 
on the confines of Persia and Armenia, 300 miles in circum- 
ference : its water is perfectly clear, and contains a fourth part 
of its weight of saline matter. These lakes are fed by springs, 
rain, and melted snow, and, having no emissaries, the surplus 
water is carried off by evaporation. 

It is possible that the volcanic soil of the table-land may be the 
cause of this exuberance of salt water. Lake Van, a sheet of salt 
water 240 miles in circumference, is separated from the equally 
salt lake Urmiah only by a lovv range of hills ; and there are 
many pieces of fresh water in that neighbourhood, possibly in 
similar hollows. 

Persia is singularly destitute of water ; the Lake of Zurrah, on 
the frontiers of Afghanistan, having an area of 18 square miles, is 
the only piece of water on the western part of the table-land of 
Iran. 

It is evident from the saline nature of the soil, and the shells it 
contains, that the plains round the Caspian, the Lake Aral, and 
the steppes, even to the Ural Mountains, had once formed part of 
the Black Sea; 57,000 square miles of that country are depressed 
below the level of the ocean — a depression which extends north- 
wards beyond the town of Saratov, 300 miles distant from the 
Caspian. The surface of the Caspian itself, which is 83 feet 
7 inches below the level of the ocean, is its lowest part, and 
has an area of 18,000 square miles, nearly equal to the area 
of Spain. In Europe alone it drains an extent of 850,000 
square miles, receiving the Volga, the Ural, and other great 

^^ [Lieutenant W. F. Lynch, of the United States Navy, has recently 
published an interesting and valuable narrative of an expedition to the 
Dead Sea and River Jordan. According to his measurements and 
surveys, the level of the Dead Sea is 1,316-7 feet below that of the 
Mediterranean. The city of Jerusalem is 2,610 5 feet above the latter, 
and 3,927-24 feet above the former sea. The greatest depth of the 
Dead Sea is 1308 feet. Lieutenant Lynch states the density of the 
water of the Dead Sea to be M3, that of distilled water being 1.] 



ASIATIC LAKES. 249 

rivers on the north. It has no tide, and its navigation is dan- 
gerous from, heavy gales, especially from the south-east, which 
drive the water miles over the land ; a vessel was stranded 46 
miles inland from the shore. It is 600 feet deep to the south, 
but is shallower to the east where it is bounded by impassable 
swamps many miles broad.^ The Lake of Eltonsk, on the 
steppe east of the Volga, has an area of 130 square miles, and 
furnishes two-thirds of the salt consumed in Russia. Its water 
yields 29* 13 per cent, of saline matter, and from this circum- 
stance is more buoyant than any that is known. ^^ 

The Lake of Aral, which is shallow, is higher than the 
Caspian, and has an area of 3372 square miles ; it has its name 
from the number of small islands at its southern end, Aral signi- 
fying " island" in the Tartar language. Neither the Caspian nor 
the Lake of Aral have any outlets, though they receive large 
rivers ; they are brackish, and, in common with all the lakes in 
Persia, they are decreasing in extent, and becoming more salt, the 
quantity of water supplied by tributaries being less than that lost 
by evaporation. Most of the rivers that are tributary to the Lake 
of Aral are diminished by canals, that carry off water for irriga- 
tion : for that reason a very diminished portion of the waters of 
the Oxus reaches the lake. Besides, the Russian rivers yield 
less water than formerly from the progress of cultivation. The 
small mountain-lake Sir-i-Kol, in the high table-land of Pamer, 
from vi^hence the Oxus flows, is 15,600 feet above the sea ; con- 
sequently there is a difference of level between it and the Dead 
Sea of nearly 17,000 feet. 

The small number of lakes in the Himalaya is one of the pecu- 
liarities of these mountains. The Lake of Ular, in +he valley of 
Cashmere, is the only one of any magnitude ; it is but 40 miles 
in circumference, and seems to be the residue of one that had 
filled the whole valley at some early period. There are many 
great lakes, both fresh and salt, on the table-land ; the annular 
form of Lake Palte, at the northern base of the Himalaya, as 
represented on maps, is unexampled ; the sacred lakes of Mana- 
sarovvar, in Great Tibet, and of Rakas Tal, occupy a space of 
about 400 square miles, in the centre of the Himalaya, between the 
gigantic peaks of Gurla on the south and of Kailas on the north ; 
it is from the westernmost of these lakes (which communicate 
with each other), the Cho Lagan of the Tibetians, that the Sutlej 
rises, at an elevation of 15,200 feet above the level of the sea. 

20 The water of Lake Eltonsk contains chloride of calcium. 

*i The water of the Dead Sea, according to Lieutenant Lynch, con- 
tains 26-42 per cent, of saline ingredients, one of which is chloride of 
magnesium. 



250 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

These remarkable lakes mark the point from around Avhich all 
the great rivers rising in the Himalaya have their origin. Tibet 
is full of lakes, many of which produce borax, found nowhere 
else but in Tuscany and in the Lipari Islands. As most of the 
great lakes on the table-land are in the Chinese territories, 
strangers have not had access to them ; the Koko-nor and Lake 
Lop seem to be very large ; the latter is said to have a surface of 
2187 square miles, and there are others not inferior to it in the 
north. The lakes in the Altai are beautiful, larger and more 
numerous than in any other mountain-chain. They are at dif- 
ferent elevations on the terraces by which the table-land descends 
to the flats of Siberia, and are, owing to geological phenomena, 
essentially different from those which have produced the Caspian 
and other steppe lakes. They seem to have been hollows formed 
where the axes of the different branches of the chain cross, and 
are most numerous and deepest in the eastern Altai. Baikal, the 
largest mountain lake, supposed to owe its origin to the sinking 
of the ground during an earthquake, has an area of 14,800 square 
miles, nearly equal to the half of Scotland. It lies buried in the 
form of a crescent, amid lofty granite mountains, which constitute 
the edge of the table-land to the south, ending in the desert of the 
Great Gobi, and in the north-west they gird the shore so closely 
that they dip into the water in many places; 160 rivers and 
streams fall into this salt lake, which drains a country probably 
twice the size of Britain. The river Angara, which runs deep 
and strong through a crevice at its eastern end, is its principal 
outlet, and is supposed to carry off but a small proportion of its 
water. Its surface is 1793 feet above the sea-level, and the 
chmate is as severe as it is in Europe 10° farther north ; yet the 
lake does not freeze till the middle of December, possibly from its 
depth, being unfathomable with a line of 600 feet. 

Two hundred and eighty years before the Christian era, the 
large fresh-water lake of Oitz, in Japan, was formed in one night, 
by a prodigious sinking of the ground, at the same time that one 
of the highest and most active volcanos in that country rose from 
the depths of the earth. 

Very extensive lakes occur in Africa; there appears to be a 
great number on the low-lands on the east coast of Africa, in which 
many of the rivers from the edge of the table-land terminate. 
Among others, there is the salt lake Assal, 25 miles west of Tad- 
jurra, in the country through which the Ha wash flows, which has 
a depression of more than 700 feet below the level of the ocean, 
by Dr. Beke's estimation, who first observed that curious circum- 
stance; but by the actual measurement of Lieutenant Christopher, 
it is 570 feet. Notwithstanding the arid soil of the southern table- 
land, it contains the fresh-water lake of N'yassi or Zambeze, one 



AMERICAN LAKES. 251 

of the largest, being some hundred miles long ; and, though nar- 
row in proportion, it cannot br crossed in a boat of the country in 
less than three days, resting at night on an island, of which there 
are many. It lies between 300 and 400 miles west from the 
Mozambique Channel, and begins 200 miles north of the town of 
Tete, which is situate on the river Zambeze, from whence it extends 
from south-east to north-west, possibly to within a degree or two 
of the equator. It receives the drainage of the country to the 
south-east : but no river is known to flow out of it, unless it be the 
Bahr-el-Abiad or White Nile, which probably rises in this lake. 
No one knows what there may be in the unexplored regions of the 
Ethiopian desert ; but Abyssinia has the large and beautiful lake 
of Dembia, situate in a spacious plain — the granary of the country 
— so high above the sea that spring is perpetual, though within 
the tropics. There are many other lakes in this great projecting 
promontory, so full of rivers, mountains, and forests ; but the low- 
lands of Soudan and the country lying along the base of the north- 
ern declivity of the table-land is the region of African lakes, of 
which the Tchad, almost the size of an inland sea, is in the very 
centre of the continent. Its extent, and the size of its basin, are 
unknown; it receives many affluents from the high lands called 
the Mountains of the Moon, certainly all those that flow from them 
east of Bornou,and it is itself drained by the Tchadda, a principal 
tributary of the Niger. Other lakes of less magnitude are known 
to exist in these regions, and there are probably many more that 
are unknown. Salt-water lakes are numerous on the northern 
boundaries of the great lowland deserts, and many fine sheets of 
fresh water are found in the valleys and flat terraces of the Great 
and Little Atlas. 

Fresh-water lakes are characteristic of the higher latitudes of 
both continents, but those in the old continent sink into insignifi- 
cance in comparison with the number and extent of those in the 
new. Indeed a very large portion of North America is covered 
with fresh water ; the five principal lakes — Superior, Huron, 
Michigan, Erie, and Ontario — with some of their dependants, pro- 
bably cover an area of 94,000 square miles; that of Lake Superior 
alone, 32,000 which is only 1800 square miles less than the whole of 
England. The American lakes contain more than half the amount 
of fresh water on the globe. The altitude of these lakes shows 
the slope of the continent; the absolute elevation of Lake Superior 
is 672 feet ; Lake Huron is 30 feet lower ; Lake Erie 32 feet lower 
than the Huron; and Lake Ontario is 331 feet below the level of 
Erie. The river Niagara, which unites the two last lakes, is 33^ 
miles long, and in that distance it descends 66 feet ; it falls in 
rapids through 55 feet of that height in the last half-mile, but the 
upper part of its course is navigable. The height of the cascade 



252 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

of Niagara is 162 feet on the American side of the central island, 
and 1135 feet wide. On the Canadian side the fall is 149 feet 
high, and 2100 feet wide — the most magnificent sheet of falling- 
water known, though many are higher. The river St. Lawrence, 
which drains the whole, slopes 234 feet between the bottom of the 
cascade and the sea. The bed of Lake Superior is 300 feet, and 
that of the Ontario 268 feet below the surface of the Atlantic, 
affording another instance of deep indentation in the solid matter 
of the globe. Some lakes are decreasing in magnitude, though 
the contrary seems to be the case in America ; between the years 
1825 and 1838, Ontario rose nearly seven feet; and, according to 
the American engineers. Lake Erie had gained several feet in the 
same time. Lake Huron is said to be the focus of peculiar elec- 
trical phenomena, as thunder is constantly heard in one of its bays. 
The lakes north of this group are innumerable; the whole coun- 
try, to the Arctic Ocean, is covered with sheets of water which 
emit rivers and streams. Lake Winnipeg, Rein-deer Lake, Slave 
Lake, and some others, may be regarded as the chief members of 
separate groups or basins, each embracing a wide extent of coun- 
try almost unknown. There are also many lakes on each side of 
the Rocky Mountains; and in Mexico th^re are six or seven lakes 
of considerable size, though not to be compared with those in North 
America. 

There are many sheets of wat^r in Central America, though 
only one is of any magnitude, and the Lake of Nicaragua, in the 
province of that name, about 100 miles from the sea, and which 
communicates with the Gulf of Mexico by the River of San Juan. 

In Central America, the Andes are interrupted by plains and 
mere hills on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and of Nicaragua, on 
each side of which there is a series of lakes and rivers, which, 
aided by canals, might form a water communication between the 
Atlantic and Pacific oceans. In the former, the line proposed 
would connect the river Guasacalco, on the Gulf of Mexico, with 
the Bay of Tehuantepec in the Pacific. In the Isthmus of Nica- 
ragua, the Gulf of San Juan would be connected by the river of 
that name, and the chain of Lakes of Nicaragua and Leon, Avith 
the Bay of Realejo or the Gulf of Fonseca, with the Gulf of Costa 
Rica. Here the watershed is only 615 feet above the sea, and of 
easy excavation, and the lake, situate in an extensive plain, is deep 
enough for vessels of considerable size. 

A range of lakes goes along the eastern base of the Andes, but 
the greater part of them are mere lagoons or marshes, some very 
large, which inundate the country to a great extent in the time of 
the tropical rains. There appears to be a deep hollow in the sur- 
face of the earth at the part where Bohvia, Brazil, and Paraguay 
meet, in which lies the Lake Xarayos, extending on each side of 



IMPORTANCE OF LAKES. 253 

the river Paraguay, but, like many South American lakes, it is 
not permanent, being alternately inundated and dry, or a marsh. 
Its inundations cover 36,000 square miles. Salt and fresh water 
lakes are numerous on the plains of La Plata, and near the Andes 
in Patagonia, resembling, in this respect, those in high northern 
latitudes, though on a smaller scale. 

In the elevated mountain-valleys and table-lands of the Andes 
there are many small lakes of the purest blue and green colours, 
intensely cold, some being near the line of perpetual congelation. 
They are generally of considerable depth. The lake of Titicaca, 
however, in the Bohvian Andes, has an area of 2225 square miles, 
of 60 to a degree, and is more than 120 fathoms deep in many 
places, surrounded by splendid scenery. Though 12,846 feet 
above the level of the Pacific, and consequently higher than the 
Peak of TenerifTe, its shores are cultivated, producing corn, barley, 
and potatoes ; and peopled by a large aboriginal population, inha- 
biting towns and villages. Numerous vestiges of Peruvian civili- 
zation are everywhere to be met with ; and in the island from which 
it derives its name, and where tradition places the origin of the last 
Inca dynasty, numerous specimens of Peruvian architecture still 
exist. 

The hmpid transparency of the water in lakes, especially in 
mountainous countries, is remarkable ; minute objects are visible 
at the bottom through many fathoms of water. The vivid green 
tints so often observed in Alpine lakes may be produced by vege- 
table dyes dissolved in the water, though chemical analysis has 
not detected them. 

Lakes, being the sources of some of the largest rivers, are of 
great importance for inland navigation as well as for irrigation ; 
while, by their constant evaporation, they maintain the supply of 
humidity in the atmosphere so essential to vegetation, besides the 
embellishment a country derives from them. 



254 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

Temperature of the earth — Temperature of the Air — Radiation — Foci of 
Maximum Cold — Thermal Equator — Its Temperature, mean and ab- 
solute — Isothermal Lines — Continental and Insular Climates — Ex- 
treme Climates — Stability of Climate — Decrease of Heat in Altitude 
— Line of Perpetual Snow — Density of the Atmosphere — The Baro- 
meter—Measurement of Heights — Variations in Density and their 
Causes — Horary Variations — Independent Effect of the dry and aque- 
ous Atmospheres— -Mean height of Barometer in different Latitudes — 
Depression in the Antarctic Ocean and in Eastern Siberia — Barome- 
tric Storms — Polar and Equatorial Currents of Air — Trade-Winds — 
Monsoons — Land and Sea Breezes — Gyration of the Winds in the 
Extra-Tropical Zones — Winds in Middle European Latitudes — Hurri- 
canes — The Laws of their Motion — Their Effect on the Barometer — 
How to steer clear of them — The Storm- Wave — Storm-Currents— 
Arched Squalls — Tornadoes — Whirlwinds — Water Spouts. 

The atmosphere completely envelops the earth to the height of about 
20 miles ; it bulges at the equator, and is flattened at the poles, in 
consequence of the diurnal rotation. It is a mixture of water in 
an invisible state and of air; but the air is not homogeneous ; 100 
parts of it consist of 79 parts of hydrogen or azotic gas, and 21 of 
oxygen, the source of combustion and animal heat. Besides these, 
there is a little ammoniacal vapour, and a small quantity of carbo- 
nic acid gas, which is sufficient to supply all the vegetation on the 
earth with wood and leaves. No doubt exhalations of various 
kinds ascend into the air, such as those w^hich produce miasmata, 
but they are in quantities too minute to be detected by chemical 
analysis, so that the atmosphere is found to be of the same compo- 
sition at all heights above the sea hitherto attained.^^ 

The temperature of the earth's surface, and the phenomena of 
the atmosphere, depend upon the revolution and rotation of the 
earth, which successively expose all the parts of the earth, and 
the air which surrounds it, to a perpetual variation of the gravi- 
tating forces of the two great luminaries, and to annual and 

22 Professor Schoenbein of Basle attributes the peculiar smell, when 
bodies are struck by lightning, to a principle existing in the atmosphere, 
which he calls ozone, liberated by the decomposing action of electricity, 
and possessing the same electrical characters as bromine, chlorine, and 
iodine. He ascribes the luminous appearance of the ocean to the action 
of that principle on the animal matter it contains. 



TEMPERATURE OF THE EARTH. 255 

diurnal vicissitudes of solar heat. Atmospheric phenomena are 
consequently periodical and connected with one another, and their 
harmony, and the regularity of the laws which govern them, be- 
come the more evident in proportion as the mean values of their 
vicissitudes are determined from simultaneous observations made 
over widely-extended tracts of the globe. The fickleness of the 
wind and weather is proverbial, but, as the same quantity of heat 
is annually received from the sun, and annually radiated into 
space, it follows that all chmates on the earth are stable, and that 
their changes, like the perturbations of the planets, are limited, 
and accomplished in fixed cycles, whose periods are still in many 
instances unknown. It is possible, however, that the earth and 
air may be affected by secular variations of temperature during 
the progress of the solar system through space, or from periodical 
changes in the sun's light and heat, similar to those which take 
place in many of the fixed stars. The secular variation in the 
moon's mean distance will no doubt alter the amount of her at- 
tractive force, though probably by a quantity inappreciable in the 
aerial tides; at all events, variations arising -from such circum- 
stances could only become perceptible after many ages. 

From experiments made by M. Peltier it appears that, if the 
absolute quantity of heat annually received by the earth were 
equally dispersed over its surface, it would, in the course of a 
year, melt a stratum of ice 46 feet deep covering the whole globe. 
It is evident that, if so great a quantity of heat had been continu- 
ally accumulated in the earth, instead of being radiated into space, 
it would have been transmitted through the surface to the poles, 
where it would have melted the ice, and the torrid zone, if not the 
whole globe, would by this time have been uninhabitable. In 
fact, every surface absorbs and radiates heat at the same time, and 
the power of radiation is always equal to the power of absorption, 
for, under the same circumstances, bodies which become soon 
warm also cool rapidly, and the earth, as a whole, is under the 
same law as the bodies at its surface. 

Although part of the heat received from the sun in summer is 
radiated back again, by far the greater part sinks into the earth's 
surface, and tempers the severity of the winter's cold while pass- 
ing through the atmosphere into the etherial regions. 

The power of the solar rays depends on the manner in which 
they fall, as may be seen from the difference of chmates. The 
earth is about 3,000,000 of miles nearer to the sun in winter than 
in summer, but the rays strike the northern hemisphere more 
obhquely in winter than in the other half of the year. 

Diurnal variations of heat are perceptible only to a small dis- 
tance below the surface of the ground, because the earth is a bad 
conductor : the annual influence of the sun penetrates much 



256 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

farther. At the equator, where the heat is greatest, it descends 
deeper than elsewhere with a diminishing intensity, hut there, 
and everywhere throughout the globe, there is a stratum, at a 
depth varying from 40 to 100 feet below the surface of the ground, 
where the temperature never varies, and is nearly the same with 
the mean temperature of the country over it. This zone, unaf- 
fected by the sun's heat from above, or by the internal heat from 
below, serves as an origin whence the effects of solar heat are 
estimated on one hand, and the internal temperature of the globe 
on the other. Below it the heat of the earth increases, as already 
mentioned, at the rate of one degree of Fahrenheit's thermometer 
for every 50 or 60 feet of perpendicular depth ; were it to con- 
tinue increasing at that rate, every substance would be in a state 
effusion at the depth of 21 miles ; hitherto, however, the experi- 
ments in mines and Artesian wells, whence the earth's tempera- 
ture below the constant stratum is ascertained, have not been 
extended below 1700 feet. 

M. de Beaumont has estimated by the theory of Fourier, from 
the observations of M. Arago, that the quantity of central heat 
which reaches the surface of the earth is capable, in the course 
of a year, of melting a shell of ice covering the globe a quarter of 
an inch thick.^^ 

The superficial temperature of the earth is great at the equator, 
it decreases gradually towards the poles, and is an exact mean 
between the two at the 45ih parallel of latitude ; but a muhitude 
of causes disturb this law even between the tropics. It is affected 
chiefly by the unequal distribution of land and water, by the height 
above the sea, by the nature of the soil, and by vegetation, so that 
a line drawn on a map through all the places where the mean 
temperature of the earth is the same would be very far from co- 
inciding with the parallels of latitude, but would approximate 
more to them near the equator. Between the tropics the tempe- 
rature of the earth's surface is greater in the interior of continents 
than on the sea-coasts and islands, and in the interior of Africa it 
is greater than in any other part of the globe. 

Temperature depends upon the property all bodies possess, 
more or less, of perpetually absorbing and emitting or radiating 
heat. When the interchange is equal, the temperature of a sub- 
stance remains the same ; but when the radiation exceeds the 
absorptioUj it becomes colder, and vice versa. The temperature 
of the air is certainly raised by the passage of the solar heat 
through it, because it absorbs one-third of it before reaching the 
earth, but it is chiefly warmed by heat transmitted and radiated 
from the earth. The radiation is abundant when the sky is clear 

23 Annales des Sciences Geologiques, par M. Riviere, 1842. 



TEMPERATURE OF THERMAL EQUATOR. 257 

and blue, but clouds intercept it ; so that a thermometer rises in 
cloudy weather, and sinks when the air becomes clear and calm ; 
even a slight mist diminishes radiation from the earth, because it 
returns as much heat as it receives. The temperature of the air 
is subject to such irregularities from these circumstances, and 
from the difference in the radiating powers of the bodies at the 
surface of the globe, that it is necessary to find, by experiment, 
the mean or average warmth of the day, month, and year, at a 
great variety of places, in order to have a standard by which the 
temperature in different parallels of latitude may be compared. 

The mean diurnal temperature of the air, at anyplace, is equal 
to half the sum of the greatest and least heights of the thermo- 
meter during 24 hours, and, as the height of the thermometer is 
twice in the course of that time equal to the mean temperature 
of the place of observation, it might seem easy to obtain its value ; 
yet that is not the case, for a small error in observation produces 
a very great error in such minute quantities, so that accuracy can 
only be attained from the average of a great number of observa- 
tions, by which the errors, sometimes in excess and sometimes in 
defect, neutralize or balance each other. The mean value of 
quantities is a powerful aid to the imperfections of our nature in. 
arriving at truth in physical inquiries, and in none more than in 
atmospheric phenomena : almost all the certain knowledge man 
has acquired with regard to the density and temperature of the 
air, winds, rain, &c., has been acquired by that method. 

The mean temperature of any one month at the same place 
differs from one year to another, but the mean temperature of the 
whole year remains nearly the same, especially when the average 
of 10 or 15 years is taken ; for although the temperature in any 
one place may be subject to very great variations, yet it never 
deviates more than a few degrees from its mean state.^ 

The motion of the sun in the ecliptic occasions perpetual vari- 
ations in the length of the day, and in the direction of his rays 
with regard to the earth; yet, as the cause is periodic, the mean 
annual temperature from the sun's motion alone must be constant 
in each parallel of latitude. For it is evident that the accumu- 
lation of heat in the long days in summer, which is but little 
diminished by radiation during the short nights, is balanced by 
the small quantity of heat received during the short days of winter 

^ The mean of any number of unequal quantities is equal to their 
sum divided by their number: thus the mean temperature of the air at 
any place during a year is equal to the sum of the mean temperature 
of each month divided by 12. This method, however, will only give 
an approximate value; therefore, to ascertain the mean annual temper- 
ature at any place accurately, the mean of a number of years must be 
taken. 

22* 



258 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

and its radiation in the long frosty and clear nights. Were the 
globe everywhere on a level with the surface of the sea, and of 
uniform substance, so as to absorb and radiate heat equally, the 
mean heat of the sun would be regularly distributed over its sur- 
face in zones of equal annual temperature parallel to the equator, 
and would decrease regularly to each pole. The distribution of 
heat, however, in the same parallel is very irregular in all latitudes, 
except between the tropics, from the inequalities in the level and 
nature of the surface of the earth, so that lines drawn on a map 
through all places having the same mean annual temperature are 
nearly parallel to the equator only between the tropics ; in all 
other latitudes they deviate greatly from it, and from one another.^ 
Radiation is the principal cause of temperature ; hence, the heat 
of the air is most powerfully modified by the ocean, which occu- 
pies three times as much of the surface of the globe as the land, 
and is more uniform in its surface, and also in its radiating power. 
On the land the difference in the radiating force of the mountains 
and table-lands from that of the plains — of deserts from grounds 
covered with rich vegetation — of wet land from dry, are the most 
general causes of variation ; the local causes of irregularity are 
beyond enumeration. 

There are two points in the northern hemisphere, both in the 
80th parallel of latitude, where the cold is more intense than in 
any other part of the globe with which we are acquainted. One 
north of Canada in 100° W. long, has a temperature of- 3°*5 of 
Fahrenheit ; while, at the Siberian point, in 95° E. long., the 
temperature of the air is + 1°; consequently it is four and a half 
degrees warmer than that north of Canada — a difference that has 
an influence even to the equator, where the mean temperature of 
the air is different in different longitudes. 

The line of the maximum temperature of the atmosphere, or 
the atmospheric thermal equator, which cuts the terrestrial equa- 
tor in the meridians of Otaheite and Singapore, passes through 
the Pacific in its southern course, and through the Atlantic in its 
northern, has a mean temperature of 83° -84 of Fahrenheit. But 
by the comparison of many observations the mean equatorial tem- 
perature of the air is 82°-94 in Asia, 85°-10 in Africa, and 80°-96 
in America: thus, it appears that tropical Africa is the hottest re- 
gion on earth. Moreover, the atmosphere in the tropical zone of 
the Pacific, when free from currents, is two degrees and a quarter 
warmer than the corresponding zone in the Atlantic, which is 
82°-40. 

On account of the great extent of ocean, the isothermal lines in 

2* Lines drawn on a map or globe through all places where the mean 
annual temperature is the same are isothermal lines. 



CLIMATE. 259 

the southern hemisphere coincide more nearly with the parallels 
of latitude than in tiie northern. In the Antarctic Ocean the 
only flexure is occasioned by the cold of the south polar current, 
which flows alon^ the western coast of the American continent. 
In the northern hemisphere the predominance of land and its fre- 
quent alternations with water, the prevalence of particular winds, 
irregularities of the surface, and the difference in the temperature 
of the points of maximum cold, cause the isothermal lines to de- 
viate more from the parallels of latitude. They make two deep 
bends northward, one in the Northern Atlantic and another in the 
northeast of America, and at last they separate into two parts, and 
encircle the points of maximum cold. 

Professor Dove has discovered that, in consequence of the 
excess of land in the northern hemisphere, and the difference in 
the effect produced by the sun's heat according as it falls on a solid 
or liquid surface, there is an annual variation in the aggregate 
mean temperature at the surface of the earth, whose maximum 
takes place during the sun's northern declination, and its minimum 
during its southern .^^ 

Places having the same mean annual temperature, often differ 
materially in climate : in some, the winters are mild and the sum- 
mers cool, whereas in others the extremes of heat and cold pre- 
vail : England is an example of the first ; Quebec, St. Peters- 
burg, and the Arctic regions, are instances of the second. The 
solar heat penetrates more abundantly and deeper into the sea 
than into the land; in winter it preserves a considerable portion 
of that which it receives in summer, and from its saltness does 
not freeze so soon as fresh water; hence, the ocean is not liable to 
the same changes of temperature as the land, and by imparting 
its heat to the winds it diminishes the severity of the climate on 
the coasts and in islands, which are never subject to such extremes 
of heat and cold as are experienced in the interior of continents. 
The difference between the influence of sea and land is strikingly 
exemplified in the high latitudes of the two hemispheres. In 
consequence of the unbounded extent of the ocean in the south, 
the air is so mild and moist that a rich vegetation covers the 
ground, while in the corresponding latitudes in the north the 
country is barren from the excess of land towards the Polar Ocean, 

26 por example, Professor Dove has found that the mean temperature 
of December, January, and February, at Toronto in Canada, added to 
the mean temperature of the same months at Hobart Town in Van 
Dieraen's Land, exceeds the sum of the mean temperature of June, 
July, and August, at the same places, added together, by 22°-7 of Fah- 
renheit. Similar results, though varying in amount, were obtained for 
many corresponding places in the two hemispheres, which establishes 
the law given in the text. 



260 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

which renders the air dry and cold. A superabundance of land 
in the equatorial regions, on the contrary, raises the temperature, 
while the sea tempers it. 

Professor Dove has shown, from a comparison of observations, 
that northern and central Asia have what may be termed a true 
continental cUmate, both in summer and in winter— that is to say, 
a hot summer and cold winter ; that Europe has a true insular or 
sea climate in both seasons, the summers being cool and the win- 
ters mild; and that in North America the climate is inclined to 
be continental in winter, and insular in summer. The extremes 
of temperature in the year are greater in central Asia than in 
North America, and greater in North America than in Europe, 
and that difference increases everywhere with the latitude. In 
Guiana, within the tropics, the difference between the hottest and 
coldest months in the year is 2°'2 of Fahrenheit, in the temperate 
zone it is about 60°, and at Yakutsk in Siberia 114°'4. Even in 
places which have the same latitude as in northern Asia, com- 
pared with others in Europe or North America, the diversity is 
very great. At duebec the summers are as warm as those in 
Paris, and grapes sometimes ripen in the open air, yet the winters 
are as severe as those in St. Petersburg. In short, lines drawn 
on a map through places having the same mean summer or winter 
temperature are neither parallel to one another, to the isothermal 
or geothermal lines, and they differ still niore from the parallels 
of latitude.27 

Observations tend to prove that all the climates on the earth are 
stable, and that their vicissitudes are only oscillations of greater 
or less extent, which vanish in the mean annual temperature of a 
sufficient number of years. There may be a succession of cold 
summers and mild winters, but in some other country the contrary 
takes place ; the distribution of heat may vary from a variety of 
circumstances, but the absolute quantity gained and lost by the 
whole earth in the course of a year is invariably the same. 

Since the air receives its warmth chiefly from the earth, its 
temperature diminishes with the height so rapidly, that at a very 
small elevation the cold becomes excessive, as the perpetual snow 

^ In the same manner as isothermal lines are supposed to pass 
through all parts of the globe where the mean temperature of the air is 
the same, so the isogeothermal lines are supposed to pass through all 
places where the mean heat of the ground is the same : the isotherial 
lines are supposed to be drawn through all places having the same 
mean summer temperature; and the isochimenal lines pass through all 
places where the mean winter temperature is the same. The practice 
of representing to the eye these lines on a map or terrestrial globe is of 
the greatest use in following and understanding the complicated phe- 
nomena of temperature and magnetism. 



VARIATIONS IN DENSITY OF AIR. 261 

on the mountain-tops clearly shows. The decrease of heat is at 
the rate of a degree of Fahrenheit's thermometer for every 334 
feet. 

The atmosphere, being a heavy and elastic fluid, decreases 
in density upwards, according to a determinate law, so rapidly, 
that three-fourths of the whole air it contains are within four miles 
of the earth, and all the phenomena perceptible to us — as clouds, 
rain, snow, and thunder — occur within that limit. The air even 
on the tops of mountains is so rare as to diminish the intensity of 
sound, to affect respiration, and to occasion a loss of muscular 
strength in man and animals.^® 

Since the space in the top of the tube of a barometer is a 
vacuum, the column of mercury is suspended in the tube by the 
pressure of the atmosphere on the surface of the mercury in the 
cistern : hence, every variation in the density or height of the 
atmosphere occasions a corresponding rise or fall in the barometric 
column. The actual mean pressure of the atmosphere at the 
level of the sea is 15 pounds on the square inch ; hence, the 
pressure on the whole earth is enormous. 

The decrease in the density of the air affords a very accurate 
method of finding the height of mountains above the level of the 
sea, which would be very simple, were it not for changes of tem- 
perature which alter the density and interfere with the regularity 
of the law of its decrease. But as the heat of the air diminishes 
with the height above the earth at the rate of one degree of Fahren- 
heit's thermometer for every 334 feet, tables are constructed, by 
the aid of which heights may be determined with great accuracy. 
In consequence of diminished pressure also, water boils at a lower 
temperature on mountain-tops than at the level of the sea, which 
affords another method of ascertaining heights. ^^ 

2= If the heights above the earth increase by equal quantities, as a 
foot or a mile, the densities of the strata of air, or the heights of the 
barometer which are proportional to them, will decrease in geometrical 
progression : for example, if the height of the barometer at the level of 
the sea be 29-922 inches, it will be 14-961 inches at the height of 18,000 
feet, or one-half as great: it will be one-fourth as great at the height of 
36,000 feet, one-eighth at the height of 54,000 feet, and so on. 

29 A very ingenious little instrument, called the Aneroid Barometer, 
has been lately invented in France; which, at the same time that it 
forms an exact and very portable weather-glaiss, in the common accepta- 
tion of that term, may be employed with considerable accuracy in 
ascertaining differences of level. Although not to be compared, as an 
instrument of precision, with the ordinary mercurial barometer, it is 
infinitely more portable, and gives with promptitude and accuracy 
small differences of level. 

A friend of the author's has recently tested it in the latter respect on 
some of our railways, and found that observations made with it care- 



262 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

By the annual and diurnal revolutions of the earth, each column 
of air is alternately exposed to the heat and cold of summer and 
winter, of day and night, and also to variations in the attraction of 
the sun and moon, which disturb its equilibrium, and produce 
tides similar to those in the ocean. Those produced by the moon 
ebb and flow twice during a lunation, and diurnal variations in 
the barometer, to a very small amount, are also due to the moon's 
attraction.^o The annual undulations occasioned by the sun have 
their greatest altitudes at the equinoxes, and their least at the 
solstices, and the diurnal variations in the height of the barometer, 
which accomphsh their rise and fall twice in 24 hours, are chiefly 
due to the effects of temperature on the dry air and moisture of 
the atmosphere, which, according to Mr. Dove's discoveries, pro- 
duce independent pressures upon the mercurial column. 

A quantity of vapour is continually raised by the heat of the 
sun from the surface of the globe, which mixes in an invisible 
state with the dry air or gaseous part of the atmosphere. It is 
most abundant in the torrid zone, and, like the heat on which it 
depends, varies with the latitude, the season of the year, the time 
of the day, the elevation above the sea, and also with the nature 
of the soil, the land, and the water. There is no chemical com- 
bination between the aerial and aqueous atmospheres, they are 
merely mixed ; and the diurnal variations arise from the super- 
position of two distinct diurnal oscillations, each going through its 
complete period in 24 hours; one taking place in the aerial atmo- 
sphere from the alternate heating and cooling of the air, which 
produce a flux and reflux over the point of observation; the other 
arising from the aqueous atmosphere, owing to the alternate pro- 
duction and destruction of vapour by the heat of the day and the 
cold of the night. The diurnal variations of the vapour have 
their maximum at or near the hottest hour of the day, and their 
minimum at or near the coldest, which is exactly the converse of 
the diurnal variations of the dry air. On the whole, there are 

fully will give, on a line of 200 miles in extent, the relative levels of 
the different stations within a few feet. The observations can be made 
in a couple of minutes. The gentleman in question writes to us, that 
he considers the Aneroid Barometer will prove a very useful instrument 
to the geological and the botanical traveller. 

See, for a description of this instrument, a pamphlet recently pub- 
lished at 84, Strand, by Mr. E. J. Dent, on the Construction and tlses 
of the Aneroid Barometer. London, 1849. 

^ The moon's orbit is very much elongated, so that her distance 
from the earth varies considerably, and consequently her attractive 
force. Moreover, her attraction varies with the rotation of the earth, 
which brings her twice in 24 hours in the meridian of any place, once 
in the superior and once in the inferior meridian ; but her action on the 
atmosphere is much inferior to that of the heat of the sun. 



BAROMETRIC WAVES. 263 

two maxima and two minima heights of the barometer in the 
course of 24 hours from the combinations of these, but in the 
interior of continents far from water, where the air is very dry, 
there ought to be one maximum and one minimum during that 
period, according to this theory. 

Between the tropics the barometer attains its greatest height at 
nine or half-past nine in the morning; it then sinks till four in 
the afternoon, after which it again rises and attains a second 
maximum at ten or half-past ten in the evening ; it then begins 
to fall till it reaches a second time its lowest point at four in the 
morning. The difference in the height is 0*117 of an inch, which 
gradually decreases north and south. Baron Humboldt mentions 
that the diurnal variations of the barometric pressure are so regu- 
lar between the tropics, that the hour of the day may be inferred 
from the height of the mercury to within fifteen or sixteen minutes, 
and that it is undisturbed by storm, tempest, rain, or earthquake, 
both on the coasts and at altitudes 13,000 feet above them. The 
mean height of the barometer between the tropics at the level of 
the sea is 30 inches with very Httle fluctuation, but, owing to the 
ascending currents of air from the heat of the earth, it is less under 
the equator than in the temperate zones. It attains a maximum 
in western Europe between the parallels of 40° and 45° ; in the 
North Atlantic the maximum is about the 30th parallel, and in 
the southern part of that ocean it is near the tropic of Capricorn ; 
the amplitude of the oscillations decreases from the tropics to 
about the 70th parallel, where the diurnal variations cease. They 
are affected by the seasons, being greatest in summer and least in 
winter. It appears, also, that the fluctuations are the reverse on 
mountain-tops from what they are on the plains, and probably at 
a certain height they would cease altogether.^^ It is a singular 
fact, discovered by our navigators, that the mean height of the 
barometer is an inch lower throughout the Antartic Ocean and at 
Cape Horn than it is at the Cape of Good Hope or Valparaiso : 
that difference in the pressure of the atmosphere is probably con- 
nected with the perpetual gales off the extremity of South America. 
M. Erman observed a similar depression near the Sea of Okhotsk 
in eastern Siberia. 

Besides the small horary undulations, there are vast waves 
moving over the oceans and" continents in separate and independ- 
ent systems, being confined to local yet very extensive districts, 
probably occasioned by long-continued rains or dry weather over 

31 Mr. Pent] and has, however, found in the Pera-Bolivian Andes, at 
elevations between 11,000 and 14,000 feet, the horary oscillations of 
the barometer as regular, and nearly as extensive; as on the level of 
the sea in the same latitude. 



264 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

wide tracts of country. By numerous barometrical observations 
made simultaneously in both hemispheres, the courses of several 
have been traced, some of which take 24, others 36 hours, to ac- 
complish their rise and fall. One especially of these vast barome- 
tric waves, many hundreds of miles in breadth, has been traced 
over the greater part of Europe, and not its breadth only, but also 
the direction of its front, and its velocity, have been clearly ascer- 
tained. The course of another wave has been made out from the 
Cape of Good Hope, through many intermediate stations, to the 
observatory at Toronto in Canada. Since every undulation has 
its perfect effect independently of the others, each one is marked 
by a change in the barometer, and this is beautifully illustrated 
by curved lines on paper, constructed from a series of observations. 
The general form of the curve shows the course of the principal 
wave, while small undulations in its outline mark the maxima 
and minima of the minor oscillations. Although, like all other 
waves, these in the atmosphere are but waving forms, in which 
there is no transfer of air, yet winds arise from them like tide- 
streams in the ocean, and Sir John Herschel is of opinion that the 
crossing of two of these vast aerial waves, coming in different 
directions, may generate, at the point of intersection, those tre- 
mendous revolving storms, or hurricanes, which spread desolation 
far and wide. 

The air expands and becomes lighter with heat, contracts and 
becomes heavier with cold, and, as there are 82 degrees of differ- 
ence between the equatorial and polar temperature, the light warm 
air at the equator is constantly ascending to the upper regions of 
the atmosphere, and flowing north and south to the poles, from 
whence tlie cold heavy air rushes along the surface of the earth 
to supply its place between the tropics, for the same tendency to 
restore equilibrium exists in air as in other fluids. These two 
superficial currents, which have no rotatory motion when they 
leave the poles, are deflected from their meridional paths by fric- 
tion from the continually increasing velocity of the earth's rotation, 
as they come nearer and nearer to the tropics ; and, as they re- 
volve slower than the corresponding parts of the earth at which 
they arrive, the bodies on its surface strike against them with the 
excess of their velocity, so that the wind appears, to a person who 
thinks himself at rest, to blow in a direction contrary to that of 
the earth's rotation. For that reason the current from the north 
pole becomes a north-east wind before arriving at the tropic of 
Cancer, and that from the south pole becomes a south-east wind, 
before it comes to the tropic of Capricorn, their limit being the 
28th parallel of latitude on each side of the equator. In fact, the 
difference of temperature puts the air in motion, and the direction 
of the resulting wind, at every place, depends upon the difference 



TRADE-WINDS. 265 

between the rotatory motion of the wind and the rotatory motion 
of the earth — the whole theory of the winds depends upon these 
circumstances. 

Near the equator the trade-winds, north and south of it, so 
completely neutralize each other, that far at sea a candle burns 
without flickering [i. e. when it is flat calm]. This zone of calms 
and light breezes, known as the Variables, which has a breadth 
of about five degrees and a half, is subject to heavy rains and vio- 
lent thunder-storms. On account of the arrangement of land and 
water, it does not coincide with the equator, but its centre runs 
along the sixth parallel of north latitude ; however, it changes in 
position and extent with the dechnation of the sun, but never 
crosses the line. 

Though the trade-winds extend to the 28th degree on each 
side of the equator, their limits vary considerably in difl^erent 
parts of the ocean, moving two or three degrees to the north or 
south, according to the position of the sun ; and in the Atlantic 
the north-east trade-wind is less steady than the south-east.^^ 
These perennial winds are known by recent observations to be 
less uniform in the Pacific than in the Atlantic ; they only blow 
permanently over that portion between the Galapagos Archipe- 
lago, off the coast of America, and the Marquesas. In the Indian 
Ocean the south-east trade-wind blows from a few degrees east of 
Madagascar to the coast of Australia, between 10° and 28° S. lat. 
The trade-winds are only constant far from land, because conti- 
nents and islands intercept them, and change their course. On 
that account the numerous groups of islands westward from the 
Marquesas change the trade-winds into the periodical monsoons, 
which are steady currents of air in the Arabian Gulf, the Indian 
Ocean, and China Sea, arising from diminished atmospheric pres- 
sure at each tropic alternately, from the heat of the sun, thereby 
producing a regular alternation of north and south winds, which, 
combining with the rotation of the earth on its axis, become a 
north-east wind in the northern hemisphere, and a south-east in 
the southern. The former blows from April to October, the latter 
from October to April ; the change is accompanied by heavy rain 
and violent storms of thunder and lightning. The ascent of the 

32 Lieutenant Maury, of the United States Navy, is led to believe that 
there is a region within the limit of the N.E. trade-winds, in the Atlan- 
tic, in which the prevailing winds are from the south and west : this 
region is somewhat in the shape of a wedge, with its base towards the 
coast of Africa, between the equator and 10° N. lat., and between the 
meridians of 10° and 25° VV. long. In this space, in which the law of 
the trade-winds is reversed, there are great atmospheric disturbances, 
violent squalls, sudden gusts of wind, thunder, storms, heavy rains^ 
bafiiing airs, and calms. 
23 



266 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

warm air between the tropics occasions a depression of the baro- 
meter amounting to the tenth of an inch, which is a measure of 
the force producing the trade-winds. In both hemispheres there 
is a regular variation in the mean height of the barometer within 
the zone in which these great aerial currents flow ; it is higher 
at their polar limits, and decreases with extreme uniformity 
towards their equatorial boundaries, the difference in both hemi- 
spheres being 0-25 of an inch. 

The unequal temperature of the land and sea causes sea-breezes 
which blow towards the land during the day, and land-breezes 
which blow sea-ward in the night ; they are not perceptible in 
the mornings and evenings, because the temperature of the land 
and water is then nearly the same. 

The trade-winds and monsoons are permanent, depending on 
the apparent motion of the sun ; but it is evident from theory 
that there must be partial winds in all parts of the earth, occa- 
sioned by the local circumstances that affect the temperature of 
the air. Consequently, the atmosphere is divided into districts, 
both over the sea and land, in which the winds have nearly the 
same vicissitudes from year to year. The regularity is greatest 
towards the tropics, where the causes of disturbance are fewer. 
In the higher latitudes it is more difficult to discover any regu- 
larity, on account of the greater proportion of land, the difference 
in its radiating power, and the greater extremes of heat and cold. 
But even there a degree of uniformity prevails in the succession 
of the winds ; for example, in all places where north and south 
winds blow alternately, a vane veers through every point of the 
compass in the transition, and in some places the wind makes 
several of these gyrations in the course of the year.^^ The south- 
westerly winds, so prevalent in the Atlantic Ocean between the 
80th and 60th degrees of north latitude, are produced by the upper 

33 In the northern hemisphere, a north wind sets out with a less rota- 
tory motion than the places have at which it successively arrives, con- 
sequently it veers through all the points of the compass from N. to N.E. 
and E. If a south wind should now spring up, it would gradually veer 
from S. to S.W. and W., because its rotatory velocity would be greater 
than that of the places it successively comes to. The combination of 
the two would cause a vane to veer from E. to S.E. and S.; but the 
rotation of the earth would now cause the south wind to veer round 
from S.to S.W. and W. ; and should a north wind now arise, its combi- 
nation with the west wind would bring the vane round from W. to N.W. 
and N. again. At the Greenwich Observatory the wind makes five 
gyrations in that direction in the course of a year. In Europe it is the 
contention of the N.E. and S.W. winds which causes the rotation of the 
wind, and the principal changes of weather, the S.W. being warm and 
moist, the N.E. cold and dry, except where it comes over the German 
Ocean. 



HURRICANES. 267 

current being drawn down to supply the superficial current which 
goes towards the equator, and, as it has a greater rotatory motion 
than the earth in these latitudes, it produces a south-westerly 
wind. On this account the average voyage from Liverpool to 
New York in a sailing vessel is 40 days, while it is only 23 
days from New York to Liverpool. For the same reason the 
average direction of the wind in England, France, Germany, 
Denmark, Sweden, and North America, is some point between 
south and west. North-westerly winds prevail in the corre- 
sponding latitudes of the southern hemisphere from the same 
cause. In fact, whenever the air has a greater velocity of rota- 
tion than the surface of the earth, a wind more or less westerly 
is produced ; and when it has less velocity of rotation than the 
earth, a wind having an easterly tendency results. Thus, there 
is a perpetual change between the different masses of the atmo- 
sphere, the warm air tempering the cold of the higher latitudes, 
and the cold air mitigating the heat of the lower ; it will be shown 
afterwards that the aerial currents are the bearers of principles on 
which the life of the animal and vegetable world depends. 

Hurricanes are those storms of wind in which the portion of the 
atmosphere that forms them revolves in a horizontal circuit round 
a vertical or somewhat inclined axis of rotation, while the axis 
itself, and consequently the whole storm, is carried forwards along 
the surface of the globe, so that the direction in which the storm 
is advancing is quite different from the direction in which the 
rotatory current may be blowing at any point ; the progressive 
motion may continue for days, while the wind accomplishes many 
gyrations through all the points of the compass in the same time. 
In the Atlantic the principal region of hurricanes is to the east of 
the West Indian islands, and in the Pacific it lies east of the island 
of Madagascar ; consequently the former is in the northern hemi- 
sphere, the latter in the southern ; but in every case the storm 
moves in an elliptical or parabolic curve. The West Indian hur- 
ricanes generally have their origin eastward of the Lesser An- 
tillas or Carribean islands, and the vertex of their path near the 
tropic of Cancer, or about the exterior limit of the north-east 
trade-wind. As the motion of the storm before it reaches the 
tropic is in a straight line from S.E. to N.W., and after it has 
passed the tropic from S.W., to N.E., the bend of the curve is 
turned towards Florida and the Carolinas. In the South Pacific 
Ocean the body of the storms moves in an exactly opposite direc- 
tion. The hurricanes which originate south of the equator, and 
whose initial path is from N.E. to S.W., turn at the tropic of Ca- 
pricorn, and then tend from N. W. to S.E., so that the bend of the 
curve is turned towards Madagascar. 

The extent and velocity of the Atlantic hurricanes are great ; 
the most rapid move at the rate of 43 miles an hour, the slowest 



268 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

16. The hurricane which took place on the 12th of August, 
1830, was traced from the eastward of the Caribbean islands to 
the banks of Newfoundland, a distance of more than 3000 miles, 
which it passed over in six days. Although that of the 1st of 
September, 1821, was not so extensive, its velocity was greater, 
as it moved at the rate of 30 miles an hour. Small storms are 
generally more rapid than those of great magnitude. Sometimes 
they appear to be stationary, sometimes they stop and again pro- 
ceed on their course, like water-spouts. Hurricanes are occa- 
sionally contemporaneous, and so near to one another as to travel 
in almost parallel tracks. This happened in the China seas 
in October, 1840, when the two storms met at an angle of 47°, 
and it was supposed that the ship Golconda foundered in that 
spot with 300 people on board. A hurricane has been split or 
divided by a mountain into two separate storms, each of which 
continued its new course, and the gyrations were made with in- 
creased violence. This occurred in the gale of the 25th of Decem- 
ber, 1821, in the Mediterranean, when the Spanish mountains 
and the maritime Alps became new centres of motion. 

By the friction of the earth the axis of the storm bends a little 
forward, and the whirling motion begins in the higher regions of 
the atmosphere before it is felt on the earth : this causes a con- 
tinual intermixture of the lower and warmer strata of air with 
those that are higher and colder, producing torrents of rain, and 
sometimes violent electric explosions. 

The rotation as well as the course of the storm is in a different 
direction in the two hemispheres, though always alike in the 
same. In the northern hemisphere the gj^ration is contrary to 
the movement of the hands of a watch, that is to say, the wind 
revolves from east, through the north, to west, south, and east 
again ; while in the southern hemisphere the rotation about the 
axis of the storm is in the contrary direction. Hurricanes happen 
south of the equator between December and April ; in the West 
Indies between June and October. Rotatory storms frequently 
occur in the Indian Ocean, and the typhoons of the China seas 
are real hurricanes of great violence. Both conform to the laws 
of such winds in the northern hemisphere. The Atlantic storms 
probably reach Spain, Portugal, and the coast of Ireland. Two 
circular storms have passed over Great Britain, and small ones 
often occur between the Chops of the Channel and Madeira. 

The revolving motion accounts for the sudden and violent 
changes observed during hurricanes. In consequence of the rota- 
tion of the air, the wind blows in opposite directions on each side 
of the axis of the storm, and the violence of the blast increases 
from the circumference towards the centre of gyration, but in the 
centre itself the air is in repose : hence, when the body of the 
storm passes over a place, the wind begins to blow moderately, 



HURRICANES. 269 

and increases to a hurricane as the centre of the Avhirlwind 
approaches ; then in a moment a dead and awful calm succeeds, 
suddenly followed by a renewal of the storm in all its violence, 
but now blowing in a direction diametrically opposite to what it 
had before : this happened in the island of St. Thomas on the 
2d of August, 1837, where the hurricane increased in violence 
till half-past seven in the morning, when perfect stillness took 
place for 40 minutes, after which the storm recommenced in a 
contrary direction. The breadth of a hurricane is greatly aug- 
mented when its path changes its direction in crossing the tropic. 
In the Atlantic, the vortex of one of these tempests has covered 
an area from 600 to 1000 miles in diameter. The breadth of the 
lull in the centre varies from 5 to 30 miles : the height is from 1 
to 5 miles at most ; so that a person might see the strife of the 
elements from the top of a mountain, such as TenerifFe or Mowna 
Roa, in a perfect calm, for the upper clouds are frequently seen 
to be at rest during the hideous turmoil in the low^er regions. 

The sudden fall of the mercury in the barometer in latitudes 
habitually visited by hurricanes is a certain indication of a coming 
tempest. In consequence of the centrifugal force of these rotatory 
storms, the air becomes rarified, and, as the atmosphere is dis- 
turbed to some distance beyond the actual circle of gyration or the 
limits of the storm, the barometer often sinks some hours before 
its arrival: it continues sinking the first half of the hurricane, and 
again rises during the passage of the latter half, though it does 
not attain its greatest height till the storm is over. The diminu- 
tion of atmospheric pressure is greater, and extends over a wider 
area, in the temperate zones than in the torrid, on account of the 
sudden expansion of the circle of rotation where the gale crosses 
the tropic. 

As the fall of the barometer gives warning of the approach of a 
hurricane, so the laws of the storm's motion afford to the seaman 
knowledge to avoid it. In the northern temperate zone, if the 
gale begins from, the S.E. and veers by S. to W., the ship should 
steer to the S.E. ; but if the gale begins from the N.E. and changes 
through N. to N.W., the vessel ought to go to the N.W. In the 
northern part of the torrid zone, if the storm begin from the N.E. 
and veer through E. to S.E., the ship should steer to the N.E. ; 
but if it begin from the N.W. and veer by W. to S.W., the ship 
should steer to the S.VV., because she is on the south-western side 
of the storm. Since the laws of storms are reversed in the south- 
ern hemisphere, the rules for steering vessels are necessarily re- 
versed also.^*^ 

2* In all hurricanes hitherto observed, the sinking of the mercury, and 
the increase of the wind, have been more or less regularly progressive 
23* 



270 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

A heavy swell or storm-wave is peculiarly characteristic of these 
tempests. In the centre of the hurricane the pressure of the at- 
mosphere is so much diminished by rotation, that the mercury in 
the barometer falls from one to two, and even two and a-half inches. 
On that account, the pressure of the ocean beyond the range of the 
wind raises the water in the centre of the vortex about two feet 
above its usual level, and proportionally to the degree of diminished 
pressure over the whole area of the storm. This mass of water, 
or storm-wave, is driven bodily along with, or before, the tempest, 
and rolls in upon the land like a huge wall of water. It is similar 
to the earthquake wave, and is by no means the heaping up of 
the water after a long gale. Ships have been swept by it out of 
docks and rivers, and it has sometimes carried vessels over reefs 
and banks so as to land them high and dry ; this happened to two 
ships on the coast of the Eastern Andaman islands, in 1844. Co- 
ringa, on the Coromandel coast, is particularly subject to inunda- 
tions from that cause. In 1789, the town and 20,000 inhabitants 
were destroyed by a succession of these great waves during a hur- 
ricane, and as many perished there in 1839. 

Besides storm-waves, storm-currents are raised, which revolve 
with the rotation of the wind, and are of the greatest force near 
the centre of the vortex. 

The rise of the sea by the pressure of the surrounding ocean, 

till within three or four hours' sail of the centre of the storm; and in one 
class they haye continued so even to the centre; while in another class, 
and by far the most terrible, the depression of the mercury has been 
sudden and excessive when within that distance of the centre, and the 
violence of the tempest far beyond the average. When a ship is within 
50 or 60 miles of the centre, the storm has the mastery, and seamanship 
is of little avail. Euies for avoiding this calamity, and for managing a 
ship when involved in a hurricane, are fully explained in the " Sailor's 
Horn-Book for the Laws of Storms," by H. Piddington, Esq., President 
of the Marine Courts of Inquiry at Calcutta. The following approximate 
table is given by him, to serve as a guide till better data shall be ob- 
tained :— 

Average fall of tlie Distance of a ship from the 

barometer per hour. centre of the storm, in miles. 

From 0-020 to 0060 .... From 250 to 150 
'' 0-060 " 0-080 . . . . ^^ 150 ^' 100 
'^ 0-080 " 0-120 . . . . ^^ 100 '' 80 

" 0-120 " 0-150 . . . . ^^ 80 ^' 50 

The rate of fall per hour doubles after the storm has lasted six hours, 
and within three hours of the centre of the hurricane the mercury will 
fall four times as fast, if it be of the violent class. 

Colonel James Capper discovered the rotatory motions of storms, and 
W. C. Redfield, Esq., of New York, was the first who determined their 
laws. Colonel Reid, Governor of Barbadoes, and Dr. Thom, of the 86th 
regiment, have also written on the subject. 



WATER-SPOUTS. 271 

and the irresistible fury of the wind, makes a tremendous commo- 
tion in the centre of the storm, where the sea rises, not in waves, 
but in pyramidal masses : the noise during its passage resembles 
the deafening roar of the most tremendous thunder ; and in the 
typhoons in the China seas it is like numberless voices raised to 
the utmost pitch of screaming. In general, there is very little 
thunder and lightning ; sometimes a vivid flash occurs during the 
passage of the centre, or at the beginning of the storm ; yet in 
Barbadoes the whole atmosphere has been enveloped in an elec- 
tric cloud. 

A thick lurid appearance, with dense masses of cloud in the 
horizon, ominous and terrible, are the harbingers of the coming 
tempest. The sun and clouds frequently assume a fiery redness, 
the whole sky takes a wild and threatening aspect, and the wind 
rises and falls with a moaning sound, like that heard in old houses 
on a winter's night : it is akin to the " calling of the sea," a melan- 
choly noise which, in a dead calm, presages a storm on some parts 
of the English coast. 

Those intensely violent gales, of short duration, called arched 
squalls, because they rise from an arch of clouds on the horizon, 
are not rotatory ; they occur in the Straits of Malacca, attended 
by fierce thunder and lightning and a lurid phosphorescent gleam. 
The north-western gales in the Bay of Bengal, the tornadoes on 
the African coast, and the pamperos of the Rio de la Plata, are of 
the same nature. On an average, a strong gale moves at the rate 
of 40 miles an hour, a storm at about 56, and hurricanes at 90. 

Whirlwinds are frequent in tropical countries, especially in des- 
erts; sometimes several are seen at one time in the Arabian 
deserts, of all sizes, from a few feet to some hundred yards in dia- 
meter. They occur in all kinds of weather, by night as well as 
by day, and come without the smallest notice, rooting up trees, 
overwhelming caravans, and throwing down houses ; and as they 
produce water-spouts when they reach the sea, they dismantle and 
even sink ships. The water-spouts so frequently seen on the 
ocean originate in adjacent strata of air of different temperatures, 
running in opposite directions in the upper regions of the atmo- 
sphere. They condense the vapour, and give it a whirling motion, 
so that it descends tapering to the sea below, and causes the sur- 
face of the water to ascend in a pointed spiral till it joins that from 
above, and then it looks like two inverted cones, being thinner in 
the middle than either above or below. When a water-spout has 
a progressive motion, the upper and under part must move in the 
same direction, and with equal velocity, otherwise it breaks, which 
frequently happens. 



272 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

Evaporation — Distribution of Vapour — Dew — Hoar-Frost — Fog — Re- 
^ gion of Clouds — Forms of Clouds — Rain — Distribution of Rain — Quan- 
tity — Number of rainy Days in different Latitudes — Rainless Districts 
—Snow Crystals — Line of perpetual Snow— Limit of Winter Snow on 
the Plains — Sleet — Hail— Minuteness of the ultimate Particles of Mat- 
ter — Their Densities and Forms — Their Action on Light — Colour of 
Bodies — Colour of the Atmosphere — Its Absorption and Reflection of 
Light — Mirage — Fog Images — Corona? and Halos— The Rainbow — 
Iris in Dewdrops — The Polarization of the Atmosphere — Atmospheric 
Electricity — Its Variations — Electricity of Fogs and Rain — Inductive 
Action of the Earth — Lightning — Thunder — Distribution of Thunder- 
storms — Back Stroke — St. Elmo's Fire — Phosphorescence — Aurora 
— Magnetism — Terrestrial Magnetism — The Dip — Magnetic Poles 
and Equator — Magnetic Intensity — Dynamic Equator — Declination- 
Magnetic Meridian — Lines of equal Variation — Horary Variations — 
Line of Alternate Horary' Phenomena^ Magnetic Storms — Coinci- 
dence of the Lines of equal Magnetic Intensity with Mountain Chains 
— Diaraagnetism. 

Moisture is evaporated in an invisible form from every part of the 
land and water, and at all temperatures, even from snow. Mr. 
Darwin mentions that the snow once entirely disappeared from 
the volcano of Aconcagua, in Chile, which is 23,300 feet high, 
from evaporation under a cloudless sky and an excessively dry 
air. The vapour rises and mixes with the atmosphere; and as 
its pressure and density diminish with the height above the sur- 
face of the earth, in consequence of gravitation, there is absolutely 
less moisture in the higher than in the lower regions of the air. 

Seven-tenths of the atmosphere rests on the ocean ; therefore the 
sea has the greatest influence in modifying climates and supply- 
ing the air with moisture. The evaporation is greatest between 
the tropics, from the excess of heat and the preponderance of the 
ocean, and its average quantity decreases from thence to the poles. 
Over the open sea, in all latitudes, the air is saturated with mois- 
ture; and in that over the coasts the quantity is very great, but it 
diminishes from the coasts to the interior of the continents. In 
the interior of the United States of North America, in the deserts 
of Asia, and in the interior of New Holland, the air is continually 
dry. There is scarcely any evaporation in the deserts of Africa, 



EVAPORATION. 273 

and the extreme heat, increased by the reverberation of the sand, 
opposes aqueous precipitations, so this land is doomed to perpetual 
sterihty. The air over the steppes of Siberia is likewise nearly 
deprived of moisture. The greatest degree of dryness on record 
is that observed by M. Erman between the valleys of the Irtish 
and Obi, after a continued south-west wnnd and a temperature of 
74° 7' of Fahrenheit. 

Throughout all the countries in the northern hemisphere where 
observations have been made on the variations of atmospheric 
moisture, it appears that the air contains less vapour in January 
than in any other month of the year, yet at that time there is the 
greatest dampness ; while in July the air is driest, and yet, on 
account of the heat, evaporation is the greatest: the reason is, 
that the heat in July dissolves the moisture and increases its elas- 
ticity or tension so much that it becomes insensible, whereas the 
the cold of winter condenses it and renders it apparent. 

The quantity of atmospheric moisture varies also with the hours 
of the day and night. In early morning the evaporation accumu- 
lates near the surface of the ground from the resistance of the air 
above it, but as the sun rises above the horizon the warm air de- 
scends and carries the vapour with it; so that the quantity near 
the ground is diminished till evening, when, on account of the low- 
ness of the temperature, the ascending currents cease, and the air 
becomes loaded with vapour, and deposits its excess in the shape 
of dew or hoar-frost. For in the night the earth radiates part of 
the heat it received during the day through the atmosphere into 
space, and the temperature of the bodies on its surface sinks below 
that of the air; and by abstracting part of the heat which holds 
the humidity of the air in solution a deposition takes place. If the 
radiation be great, the dew is frozen and becomes hoar-frost, which 
is the ice of dew. Cloudy weather is unfavourable for the forma- 
tion of dew by preventing the free radiation of heat, and actual 
contact is necessary for its formation, as it is never suspended in 
the air like fog. Dew falls in calm serene nights, but not on all 
substances indifferently; it wets them in proportion to their power 
of radiation, leaving those dry that "radiate feebly or not at all. 
Dew is most abundant on coasts ; in the interior of continents there 
is very little, except near lakes or rivers. When dew is congealed 
into hoar-frost it forms beautiful crystals, and the cold which pro- 
duces it is very hurtful to vegetation, but a slight covering pre- 
serves plants from its effects. 

When the atmosphere is so saturated with the vapour of water 
that it is precipitated in the air itself, a fog is the result, which 
consists of small globular particles of water. When dew is formed 
the earth is colder than the air in contact with it; but the case 
is exactly the contrary when fogs take place, the moist soil being 



274 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

Warmer than the air. In countries where the soil is moist and 
warm, and the air damp and cold, thick and frequent fogs arise, 
as in England, where the coasts are washed by a sea of elevated 
temperature, and the excess of the heat of the Gulf-stream above 
the cold moist air is the cause of the perpetual fogs in New- 
foundland. 

Superior to all these phenomena, and at a considerable height 
above the earth, the air is very dry, because, under ordinary cir- 
cumstances, the vapour ascends in a highly elastic and invisible 
state till it reaches a stratum of air of lower temperature, and 
then it is condensed into clouds. The region of clouds is a zone 
at a height varying from one to four miles above the surface of 
the earth, which is saturated with moisture. From friction and 
other causes the currents of air in the lower parts of that zone 
run horizontally on each other; and as they generally differ in 
moisture, temperature, and velocity, the colder condense the 
invisible vapour in the warmer, and make it apparent in the form 
of a cloud, which differs in no respect from a fog, except that one 
floats high in the air, while the other /ests on the ground. 

At moderate heights clouds consist of vapour, but at great 
elevations, where the cold is severe, they are an assemblage of 
minute crystals of ice. They assume three primary characters, from 
whence four subordinate forms are derived. The cirrus, or cat's- 
taii of sailors, is the highest; it sometimes resembles a white 
brush, at other times it consists of horizontal bands of slender 
silvery filaments. To these all Kamtz's measurements assign a 
height of 19,500 feet, which is confirmed by their appearance 
being the same when seen from the tops of mountains or from 
the plains ; consequently, they must consist of minute particles of 
ice or flakes of snow floating in the higher regions of the zone of 
clouds. The cirri for the most part arrange themselves in parallel 
bands which converge to opposite points in the horizon by the 
effects of perspective, and as they travel in their longitudinal 
direction they appear to be stationary. In the middle and higher 
latitudes of the northern hemisphere they tend from south-west to 
north-east, and at the equator from south to north. It is sup- 
posed that their parallel form arises from their being conductors 
between'two foci of electricit}'', but, whatever the cause of this 
arrangement may be, it is very extensive. Among these clouds, 
which occasionally appear like fleecy cotton or wool, halos and 
parhelia are formed, which often precede a change of weather, 
announcing rain in summer, in winter frost and snow. 

Cumuli, or summer-clouds, are rounded forms resting on a 
straight band in the horizon, and resemble mountains covered 
with snow. They are formed by ascending currents drawing 
the vapours into the higher regions of the atmosphere ; some- 



RAIN. 275 

times they rise and cover the whole sky, and in the evening they 
frequently become more numerous and of deeper tint, presaging 
storm or rain. 

The stratus is the third of the primary characters of clouds : it 
is a horizontal band, Avhich forms at sunset and vanishes at sun- 
rise. The subordinate varieties of clouds are combinations of 
these three principal classes.^^ The winds, the great agents in all 
atmospheric changes, carry the vapour to a distance, where it is 
often condensed on the tops of mountains into clouds which seem 
to be stationary, but which in reality are only maintained by a 
constant condensation of fresh vapour, which is carried off, as soon 
as formed, by the wind, and becomes invisible on entering 
warmer air. 

When two masses of air of different temperature meet, the 
colder, by abstracting the heat which holds the moisture in solu- 
tion, causes the particles to coalesce and form drops of water, 
which fall in the shape of rain by their gravitation. And when 
two strata of different temperature moving rapidly in contrary 
directions come into contact, a heavy fall of rain takes place ; 
and as the quantity of aqueous vapour is most abundant in 
tropical regions, the drops are larger and the rain heavier than 
elsewhere. 

Since heat is the cause of evaporation, rain is very unequally 
distributed, and with it decreases from the equator to the poles. 
From the island of Otaheite [Tahiti], in the Pacific, to Uleaborg, 
in Finland, the annual quantity of rain that falls decreases from 
150 inches to 18. It is, however, more abundant in the New 
World than in the Old; 115 inches fall annually in tropical 
America, while in the Old World the annual fall is only 76 
inches ; so also in the temperate zone of the United States the 
annual quantity is 37 inches, while in the Old Continent it is but 
31| inches. 

Between the tropics the rains follow the sun : when he is 
north of the equator the rains prevail in the northern tropic ; and 
when he is south of that line, in the southern : hence, one half of 
the year is extremely wet and the other half extremely dry ; the, 
change taking place near the equinoxes. Nevertheless, in coun- 
ts The four subordinate forms of clouds are the cirro-stratus, com- 
posed of little bands of filaments, more compact than the cirrus, forming 
horizontal strata, which seem lo be numerous thin clouds when in the 
zenith, and at the horizon a long narrow band. The cumulo-stratus 
consists of the summer-cloud, like snowy mountains heaped on one 
another, which at sunrise have a black or bluish tint at the horizon, and 
pass into the nimbus, or rain-cloud, which has a unitbrm grey tint, 
tringed at the edges ; and the fourth is the cirro-cumulus, a combina- 
tion of filaments and heaped-np cumuli or summer-clouds. 



276 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

tries situate between the 5th and 10th parallels of latitude, north 
and south, there are two rainy seasons, and two dry ; one occurs 
when the sun passes the zenith in his progress to the nearest 
tropic, and the other at his return, but in the latter the rains are 
less violent and of shorter duration. Although the quantity 
of water which falls between the tropics in a month is greater 
than that of a whole year in Europe, yet the number of rainy 
days increases with the latitude, so that there are fewest where 
the quantity is greatest. Neither does it fall continually during 
the rainy season between the tropics, for the sky is generally 
clear at sunrise, it becomes cloudy at ten in the morning, at noon 
the rain begins to fall, and, after pouring for four or five hours, 
the clouds vanish at sunset, and not a drop falls in the night, so 
that a day of uninterrupted rain is very rare. 

At sea, within the region of the trade-winds, it seldom rains, but 
in the narrow zone between them known as the Variables, in both 
the great oceans, it rains almost continually, attended by violent 
thunder and lightning. 

Throughout the whole region where the monsoons prevail, it 
is not the sun, directly, but the winds, that regulate the periodical 
rains. That region extends from the eastern coasts of Africa and 
Madagascar across the Indian Ocean to the northern districts of 
Austraha, and from the tropic of Capricorn to the face of the 
Himalaya, the interior of China, and even to Corea, inclusive. 
In these countries the western coasts are watered during the 
south-west monsoon, which prevails from April to October; and 
the eastern coasts are watered during the north-east monsoon, 
which blows from October to April. For example, the south-west 
wind condenses the vapour on the summit of the Ghauts, and 
violent rains fall daily on the coast of Malabar, while on the 
Coromandel coast the sky is serene. Exactly the contrary takes 
place during the north-east monsoon ; it rains on the coast of 
Coromandel, while there is fair weather on the Malabar coast, 
and the table-land of the Deccan partakes of both. In the southern 
hemisphere the rainy season corresponds with the south-west 
monsoon, and the dry with the south-eastern. 

Between the tropics it rains rarely during the night, and for 
months together not a drop falls ; while in the temperate zone it 
often rains in the night, and rainfalls at all seasons, though more 
abundantly in some than in others. It seldom rains in summer 
throughout the north of Africa, Madeira, the southern parts of 
Spain and Portugal, Sicily, southern Italy, all Greece, and the 
north-western part of Asia ; but it falls copiously during the other 
seasons, especially in winter; consequently, that extensive region 
is called the province of winter rains. 

The province of autumnal rains includes all Europe south of 



RAIN. 277 

the Carpathians, western France, the delta of the Rhine, northern 
and western Scandinavia, and the British isles ; throughout these 
countries more rain falls in autumn than in the other three 
seasons. 

The province of summer rains comprises the eastern parts of 
France, the Netherlands (with the exception of the delta of the 
Rhine), the north of Switzerland, all Germany north of the Alps, 
the Carpathian mountains, Denmark, southern Scandinavia, all 
central Europe, and the countries beyond the Ural Mountains to 
the interior of Siberia, where showers are very rare in winter. 
In some places it rains almost perpetually, as in the island of 
Sitka, on the north-eastern coast of North America, where the 
year has sometimes passed with, only 40 days of fair weather. 

In the southern hemisphere, in Chile and the south-western 
part of America, winter is the rainy season, while on the eastern 
side of the Cordilleras the rains occur in summer. In Tierra del 
Fuego and the extreme point of the continent the two provinces 
meet, the periodical precipitation disappears, and it snows and 
rains throughout the year in torrents. At Cape Horn the quan- 
tity of rain which fell in 41 days measured nearly 154 inches. 
This excessive fall of rain occurs along the whole western shores 
of Patagonia, from the Straits of Magellan to Cape Tres Monies — a 
circumstance favoured by the high and rugged coasts, and the 
incessant westerly winds, which carry the vapour exhaled from 
the ocean to be precipitated here in the form of rain. 

South Africa and Australia resemble each other in their rainy 
seasons, which in both countries take place in the winter months. 

The annual amount of rain at the equator is 95 inches, which 
falls in 78 or 80 days, giving an average of 1*14 inch daily ; 
while at St. Petersburg the annual amount is 17 inches, which 
falls in 169 days, the average being little more than the tenth of 
an inch dailyj 

The quantity of rain decreases in ascending from the plains to 
table-lands, especially if these be edged by mountains, because 
they precipitate the vapour before it arrives at the high plains. 
On the contrary, the quantity increases in ascending from plains 
to the tops or slopes of rugged mountains, on account of partial 
currents of air which condense the moisture into clouds. 

The quantity of rain decreases on receding from the coasts 
into the interior of continents, because more vapour rises from the 
sea than from the land. The vapour from the Gulf-stream pro- 
duces a greater quantity of rain and fog in the southern counties 
of England and Ireland than that which falls in the other parts 
of the islands. 

The number of rainy days depends upon the direction of the 
wind. In Europe, if the wind always blew from the north-east, 
24 



278 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

it would never rain, because it blows over a great extent of con- 
tinent ; whereas it would never cease raining were the wind 
always to blow from the south-west, because it would come 
loaded with vapour from the Atlantic. Hence, the greatest quan- 
tity of rain falls on the west coasts of Great Britain and Ireland, 
the coast of Scandinavia, the eastern Alps, and the centre of 
Portugal ; in the two last it depends partly on the height and 
serrated form of the mountains. In western Europe it rains 
on twice as many days as in the eastern part ; in Ireland there 
are three times as many rainy days as in Italy or Spain. In 
fact, on the western side of Ireland it rains on 308 days out of 
the 365. In England, France, and the north of Germany, there 
are from 152 to 155 rainy days in the year ; the number decreases 
towards the interior of the continent, so that in Siberia it only 
rains on 60 days in the year. 

There are enormous tracts of land on which rain never falls, 
and others where it rains at long intervals and in small quantities. 
The most extensive rainless district stretches from the borders of 
Morocco eastward through the desert of Africa, the low coasts of 
Arabia, Persia, and the desert province of Meekran, in Belooch- 
istan, occupying a space of 80 degrees of longitude and 17 of 
latitude. The desert of Gobi, on the table-land of Tibet, and part 
of Mongolia, form another rainless province in the great conti- 
nent ; while, in the New World, the rainless districts are — the 
table-land of Mexico, part of Guatemala and Cahfornia, and the 
western declivity of the Andes of Peru, towards the Pacific ; in 
all occupying a surface equal to 5,500,000 square miles. The 
whole of the moisture is intercepted by the Andes of Peru ; so 
that rain only occurs on the coast once or twice in a century — to 
the great terror of the inhabitants when it does fall. [The ab- 
sence of rain is here compensated for by copious dews and mists, 
termed " llovisnas."] South Africa, and Australia beyond the 
tropics, suffer from droughts, which are periodical in AustraHa ; 
they recur inthe countries of the eastern coasts in a period of 12 
years, and continue 3 years. The Pampas of South America are 
also subject to droughts, though they do not appear to be periodi- 
cal, nor do they continue more than a season. ^^ 

When the temperature of the air is near the freezing-point or 
below it, snow falls instead of rain ; but the colder the air the less 
moisture does it contain, consequently the less snow falls, which 
is the reason of the comparatively small quantity on the high 
plains of the Himalaya and Andes. Snow sometimes assumes 

^ The reader is referred to the chart of the distribution of rain in the 
Physical Atlas of Alexander Keith Johnston, Esq., where the value of 
the practice referred to in note p. 27 is shown. 



SNOW. 279 

the form of grains ; but is generally in regular crystals of great 
beauty, varying in form according to the degree of cold. Cap- 
tain Scoresby, whose voyages in the Polar Seas afforded him 
constant opportunities of studying them, of which he so diligently 
availed himself, mentions five principal kinds of snow crystals, 
each of which had many varieties, in all amounting to 96. M. 
Kamtz, however, is of opinion that there are several hundred. 

Snow never falls between the tropics except on the tops of very 
high mountains. The mean elevation of the line of perpetual 
snow above the level of the sea in these hot regions is about 
15,207 feet, from whence it decreases on both sides, and at last 
grazes the surface of the earth at the arctic and antartic circles, 
subject however to various flexures. In the Andes, near Q-uito, 
the lowest level has an elevation of 15,795 feet, which is higher 
than the top of Mont Blanc; from thence it varies very irregu- 
larly, both to the north and south. Iia 18° of N. lat. it descends 
to 14,772 feet on the mountains of Mexico, while on the south it 
rises to 18,000 feet in some parts of the western Cordillera of the 
Bolivian Andes, owing to the extensive radiation from the subja- 
cent plains and valleys. The line is at an altitude of 17,000 feet 
on the western Cordillera, whence it sinks to 13,800 feet at Co- 
piapo, to 12,780 near Valparaiso ; it is only 8300 in the southern 
end of the Chilian Andes, and 3390 in the Straits of Magellan. 
In lat. 31° N. the snow-line is at an elevation of 12,981 feet on 
the southern side of the Himalaya, and at 16,620 feet on the 
northern side, while Captain Gerard gives from 18,000 to 19,000 
as its altitude on the mountains in the middle of the plain of Tar- 
tary. On Mont Blanc the line is at the height of 8500 feet, so 
that mountain is snow-clad for 7000 feet below its summit. In the 
Pyrenees it is 8184 feet, and at the island of Mageroe it is at 2160 
feet above the Polar Ocean. 

In the southern hemisphere, snow never falls on the low lands 
at the level of the sea north of the 48th parallel of latitude, on 
account of the predominance of water, whereas in the northern 
hemisphere it falls on the plains much nearer the equator, on 
account of the excess of land, but its limit is a curved line, on 
account of the alternations of land and water. In the western 
part of the great continent, the southern limit of the fall of snow 
on the low lands nearly coincides with the 30th parallel of north 
latitude, so that it includes all Europe. In the American conti- 
nent it follows nearly the same line, extending through the south- 
ern parts of the United States. In China, snow falls at the level 
of the sea as far south as Canton ; on the north-western coast of 
America, on the contrary, it does not fall at that level till about 
the 48th degree of N. lat. — these are the two extremes. Al- 
though Europe lies within the region of snow, the quantity that 



280 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

falls is very different in different places, increasing greatly from 
south to north. On an average, it snows only one day and a-half 
at Rome in the year, while at Petersburg there are 171 snowy 
days, but in that city the quantity of rain is to that of snow as 1000 
to 384. 

Sleet, which is formed of small particles of rounded hail, falls 
in squally weather in spring and autumn. True hail, when large, 
is pear-shaped, and consists of a nucleus of frozen snow coated 
with ice, and sometimes with alternate layers of snow and ice. 
Hailstones have often fallen as large as pigeons' and even hens' 
eggs. The masses and blocks of ice of great size, which have 
not unfrequently fallen, appear to have been formed of hailstones 
of large size frozen together. It appears to be formed in the high 
cold regions of the atmosphere, by the sudden condensation of 
vapour during the contention of opposing winds, and is intimately 
connected Avith electricity,^ince its fall is generally accompanied 
with thunder and hghtning. Hail-showers are of short duration, 
exceedingly partial, and extend over a country in long narrow 
bands ; one which took place on the 13th of July, 1788, began in 
the morning in the south of France, and reached Holland in a 
few hours, destroying a narrow hne of country in its passage. 

Local circumstances, no doubt, have a great influence on its 
formation ; it occurs more frequently in countries at a little dis- 
tance from mountains than in those close to them or farther off, 
and at all hours, but most frequently at the hotter time of the day. 
In the interior of Europe one half of the hail-storms take place in 
summer. Hail is very rare on the tropical plains, and often aUo- 
gether unknown, though it frequently falls at heights of 1700 or 
1800 feet above them. If the air is very cold throughout the 
greater part of the stratum through which hail falls, it is probably 
increased in size during its descent ; and, on the contrary, large 
drops of rain which precede a thunder-storm are supposed to be 
hail meked in its passage through low warm air. 



LIGHT. 

We know nothing of the size of the ultimate particles of mat- 
ter, except that they must be inconceivably small, since organ- 
ized beings possessing life and exercising all its functions have 
been discovered so minute that a million of them would occupy 
less space than a grain of sand. 

The air is only visible when in mass ; the smallest globule of 
steam tells no more of its atoms than the ocean ; the minutest 
grain of sand magnified appears like the fragment of a rock — no 
mechanical division can arrive at the indivisible. Although the 
ultimate atoms are beyond the power of vision, chemical com- 



LIGHT— ABSORPTION AND REFLECTION. 281 

pounds show that the divisibility of matter has a limit, and that 
the particles have different densities ; moreover, the cleavage of 
crystalline substances gives reason to believe that they have dif- 
ferent forms.^7 Thus, the reasoning power of man has come to 
the aid of his imperfect sense of vision, so that what were before 
imaginary things are now real beings with definite weights, and 
uniting by fixed laws. Though nothing had been known of their 
size, their effects were evident in the perceptions of sweet and 
sour, salt and bitter, and in the endless varieties of aroma in the 
food we eat and the liquors we drink. Moreover, their different 
densities are evident, as they arise by their buoyancy in the per- 
fume of the rose, or sink by their weight in the heavy odour of 
mignonette. Every substance on earth is merely a temporary 
compound of the ultimate atoms, sooner or later to be resolved 
into its pristine elements, which are again to be combined in other 
forms, and according to other laws ; so that literally there is 
nothing new under the sun, for there is no evidence of new mat- 
ter being added to the earth, nor of that which exists being anni- 
hilated. Fire, which seems utterly to destroy, only resolve bodies 
into their elementary parts, to become what they were before, the 
support of animal or vegetable life, or to form new mineral com- 
pounds. It is to the action of these particles on the light of the 
sun that nature owes all its colours. 

When a sunbeam passes through a glass prism"^ an oblong 
image of the sun is formed, consisting of colours in the following 
order — red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Sir 
John Herschel discovered lavender rays beyond the violet, and 
dark red rays exterior to the red, which are not so easily, brought 
into evidence as the rest. 

Even the most transparent substances absorb light ; air, water, 
the purest crystal, stop some of the rays as they pass through 
them. A portion of the light is also reflected from the surface of 
all bodies ; were it otherwise, they would be invisible. We 
should be unconscious of the presence and form of material sub- 
stances beyond our reach except by the reflected rays, — 

'■^ The mist of light from whence they take their form 
Hides what they are.'' 

As the same light does not come to all eyes, each person sees 
his own rainbow, the same flower by different rays. White sub- 

27 The reader is referred to the ^'Connection of the Physical Sciences'' 
for an account of Dr. Dalton's theory of definite proportions, and the 
relative weight of atoms. 

38 The reader is referred to the 18th section of the ^^ Physical Sci- 
ences" lor reflection, refraction, and absorption of light, and to the 19th 
section for the constitution of the solar light and colours. 
24* 



282 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

Stances reflect all the light, black substances absorb all but that 
which renders them visible, while coloured bodies decompose the 
light, absorb some of the colours, and reflect or transmit the rest. 
Thus, a violet absorbs all but the violet rays, which it reflects ; a 
red flower only reflects the red and absorbs the rest ; a yellow 
substance absorbs all but the yellow. In the same manner trans- 
parent substances, whether solid or fluid, absorb some colours and 
transmit others : thus, an emerald absorbs all but the green, a 
ruby all but the red ; whereas a diamond does not decompose the 
light, but transmits every ray alike. Very few, however, of the 
colours, whether transmitted or reflected, are pure, but the sub- 
stance takes its hue from the colour that predominates. 

The atmosphere absorbs all the colours of the sun's light except 
the blue, which is its true colour. In countries where the air is 
pure, the azure of the sky is deep ; it is still more so at great 
elevations, where the density of the air is less ; and its colour is 
most beautiful as it gradually softens the outHnes of the moun- 
tains into extreme distance, or blends the sea with the sky. The 
air reflects and scatters part of the white solar beams, whence the 
brightness and cheerfulness of day ; that property, together with 
the refractive power of the aqueous vapour, gives the roseate hue 
to the early morning, and the gold and scarlet tints to the closing 
day. Were it not for the reflective power of the air, the sun and 
moon would be like sharply-defined balls of fire in the profoundly 
black vault of the heavens, and dark night would instantly follow 
sunset. When the sun is 18 degrees below the horizon, the air, 
at the height of 30 miles, is still dense enough to reflect his rays, 
and divide the day from the night by the solar shades of twilight. 

A considerable portion of the sun's light is absorbed by the at- 
mosphere : the loss increases with the density and obliquity of 
incidence and the density of the air. It is diminished 1300 times 
by the thickness of the air in the horizon, which enables us to look 
at the sun when setting without being dazzled. 

Mirage, or the delusive appearance of water, so frequent in 
deserts, is owing to the reflection of light between two strata of air 
of diflerent densities, occasioned by the radiation of heat from the 
arid soil. It is very common on the extensive plains in Asia and 
Africa, and especially in Upper Egypt; villages on small emi- 
nences above the plain appear as if they were built on islands in 
the middle of a lake when the dry sandy ground is heated by the 
mid-day sun. Sometimes objects appear double, and occasionally 
several images appear above one another, some direct and some 
inverted; this is particularly the case in high latitudes, where the 
Icy Sea cools the stratum of air resting on it.^^ 

^^ For the cause of mirage, see the ^'Connection of the Physical 
Sciences.'^ 



RAINBOWS. 283 

In the polar regions, or on the tops of mountains, when the sun 
is in the horizon the shadow of a person is sometimes thrown on 
an opposite cloud or mist, the head being surrounded by concen- 
tric coloured rings or circles, the number varying from one to five; 
Captain Scoresby saw four of these rings, on one occasion, round 
the shadow of his head, as he stood between the sun and a thick 
low fog: the first ring consisted of concentric bands of white, yel- 
low, red, and purple ; the second consisted of concentric bands of 
blue, green, yellow, red, and purple ; the third of green, white, yel- 
lowish white, red, and purple ; and in the fourth were greenish 
white, deeper on the edges. These appearances, called glories^ 
or fog-images, and the coronse or small concentric coloured circles 
which surround the sun or moon when partly obscured by thin 
white clouds, are owing to the refraction of the light in the aque- 
ous particles of the cloud or fog. The colours in the concentric 
bands of the coronse, however, differ from the foregoing; that 
nearest the sun is of deep blue, white, and red ; the circle exterior 
to that consists of purple, blue, green, pale yellow, and red; but 
the series is very rarely complete. 

Halos, which surround the sun in large circles, or a complicated 
combination of circles, are, on the contrary, supposed to be pro- 
duced by the light falling on minute crystals of ice suspended in 
the atmosphere ; they are particularly briUiant and frequent in high 
latitudes. It is scarcely possible to give an idea of these beautiful 
and singular objects. Sometimes a large coloured circle surrounds 
the sun or passes through his centre, which is occasionally touched 
or cut by segments of others. One seen at St. Petersburg on the 
29th of June, 1790, consisted of four coloured circles of different 
sizes intersecting each other, which. were either cut or touched by 
segments of eight others, and at the points of intersection mock 
suns or parhelia appeared. The sky is very hazy on these occa- 
sions. Mock suns, without circles and halos, are by no means 
uncommon round both sun and moon, but seldom of that compli- 
cated kind. They are situate between the observer and the sun, 
whereas the rainbow is always in that part of the sky opposite the 
sun, because it is produced by refraction and reflection of the sun's 
rays in the drops of rain ; and when the light is intense and the 
rain abundant, there are two concentric bows, the prismatic colour 
of the innermost of which are the most vivid, the violet being 
within and the red outside: sometimes the inner edge exhibits a 
repetition of colours in fine fringes, in which red and green pre- 
dominate. The colours are reversed in the exterior bow, the violet 
being outside and the red on the inner edge. Besides these two 
principal and most common bows, supernumerary rainbows occa- 
sionally appear within the interior bow, generally green and violet, 
though there are sometimes more or less perfect repetitions of all 



284 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

the colours. In squally weather a rainbow is sometimes seen on 
a blue sky when rain is falling, but it is generally on clouds; it is 
constantly seen when the sun shines on the fine drops of fauntains 
and cascades. As the light of the moon is feeble, lunar rainbows 
are rare, and, for the most part, colourless. In the early morning, 
when the sun throws his slanting beams across the fields, a minia- 
ture bow, with, all its vivid cojours, may be seen in each dewdrop 
as it hangs on the points of the bending grass. 

Light is said to be polarized when, after having been once re- 
fracted or reflected, it is rendered incapable of being again refracted 
or reflected at certain angles. For example, if a crystal of brown 
tourmaline be cut longitudinally into thin slices, and polished, the 
light of a candle may be seen through a slice as if it were glass. 
But if one of these slices be held perpendicularly between the eye 
and the candle, and a second slice be turned round between the 
eye and the other plate of tourmaline, the image of the candle will 
vanish and come into view at every quarter-revolution of the plate, 
varying through all degrees of brightness down to total or almost 
total evanescence, and then increasing again by the same degrees 
as it had decreased. Thus, the light, in passing through the first 
plate of tourmaline, is said to be polarized because it has been ren- 
dered incapable of passing through the second piece of tourmaline: 
in certain positions. 

A ray of light acquires the same property if it be reflected from 
a pane of plate-glass at an angle of 57 degrees ; it is by that ren- 
dered incapable of being reflected by another pane of plate-glass 
in certain definite positions, for the image of the light vanishes 
and reappears alternately at every quarter-revolution of the second 
pane. 

If a thin plate of mica be interposed when the image of the can- 
dle has vanished, the darkness will instantly disappear, and a suc- 
cession of the most gorgeous colours will come into view, varying 
with every inclination of the mica, from the richest reds to the most 
vivid greens, blues, and purples. The most splendid colours ar- 
ranged in symmetrical forms are exhibited by thin plates of an 
infinite variety of substances besides mica. They display some 
of the most beautiful objects in nature, and show differences other- 
wise inappreciable in the arrangement of the molecules of crystal- 
line bodies.**^ c 

M. Arago discovered that the light of the sun is polarized by 
the reflection of the atmosphere, but not equally so on every part 
of the sky; the polarization is least in the vicinity of the sun, and 
greatest at 90° from him, for there his light is reflected at an angle 

^ For phenomena and theory of polarized light, see section 21, " Con- 
nection of the Physical Sciences."' 



ELECTRICITY. 285 

of 45°, which is the polarizing angle for air.*^ There are three 
points in the sky where the light is not polarized : one of these 
neutral points, discovered by M. Arago, is 18° 30' above the point 
diametrically opposite to the sun when he is in the horizon; the 
second neutral point, discovered by M. Babinet, is 18° 30' above 
the sun when he is rising or setting ; and the third, discovered by 
Sir David Brewster, is 15° or 16° below the sun. These points 
vary with the height of the sun, and the two latter rise and coin- 
cide in his centre when he is in the zenith.^2 

Now, the portion of polarized hght sent to the eye from any part 
of a clear sky is in a plane passing through that point, the eye of 
the observer, and the centre of the sun. If that point be the north 
pole of the heavens, it is clear that, as the sun moves in his diur- 
nal course, the plane will move with him as an hour circle, and 
may be used as a dial to determine the hour of the day. Professor 
Wheatstone, by whom that beautiful apphcation of the polariza- 
tion of the atmosphese has been made, has constructed a clock, of 
very simple form, which shows the time of day with great accu- 
racy, and which has many advantages over a sun-dial. 



ELECTRICITY. 

Electricity pervades the earth, the air, and all substances, with- 
out giving any visible sign of its existence when in a latent state, 
but, when elicited, it exhibits forces capable of producing the most 
sudden, violent, and irresistible effects. It is roused from its dor- 
mant state by every disturbance in the chemical, mechanical, or 
calorific condition of matter, and then experience shows that bodies 
in one electric state repel, and in another they attract each other. 
Probably their mutual attraction and repulsion arise from the re- 
dundancy and defect of electricity; in the first case they are said 
to be positively, in the latter negatively electric.*^^ When they 
have diiTerent kinds of electricity they attract each other, and, 
when not opposed, the electricity coalesces with great rapidity, 
producing the flash, explosion, and shock, and that with the more 
violence the greater the tension or pressure of the electricity on 
the surrounding air which resists its escape. Equihbrium is then 
restored, and the electricity remains latent till called forth by a new 
exciting cause. The electrical state of substances is easily dis- 

4' Every substance; whether solid or fluid, has its own polarizing 
angle. 

**2 The reader is referred to a plate in ^^ Johnston's Physical Atlas" 
showing the phenomena of the polarization of the atmosphere. 

^^ See sections 28 and 29 of the '^ Connection of the Physical Sciences:'' 
on Electricity. 



286 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

turbed, for, without contact, positive electricity tends to produce 
negative electricity in a body near it, and vice versa : the latter is 
then said to be electric by induction. 

The electricity of the atmosphere arises from evaporation, and 
the chemical changes that are in perpetual progress on the globe ; 
no electricity, however, is developed by the evaporation of pure 
water, but it arises abundantly from water containing matter sus- 
ceptible of chemical action during the evaporation ; consequently, 
the ocean is one of the greatest sources of atmospheric electricity; 
combustion is another, and a large portion arises from vegetation. 
The air, when pure, is almost always positively electric ; but as 
the chemical changes on the earth sometimes produce positive 
and sometimes negative electricity, it is subject to great local 
variations ; a passing cloud or a puff of wind produces a change, 
and a distant storm renders it negative for the time, but the earth 
is always in a negative state. The quantity of electricity varies 
with the hours of the day and the seasons ; it is more powerful 
in the day than in the night, in winter than in summer, and it 
diminishes from the equator to the poles. It thunders daily in 
many places, in others never, as on the east coast of Peru and in 
the Arctic regions, except where there are violent volcanic explo- 
sions, which always generate electricity, as in Iceland. Wherever 
there are no trees or high objects to conduct it to the ground, the 
quantity of positive electricty increases with the height above the 
surface of the earth. Violent thunder-storms take place on the 
tops of the Andes and Himalaya mountains, at heights of 26,650 
feet above the plains. 

Electricity becomes very strong when dew is deposited, and in 
some cases it is strongly developed in fogs. Mr. Cross found it 
so powerful on one occasion, that it was dangerous to approach 
the apparatus for measuring its intensity. A continued succes- 
sion of explosions lasted nearly five hours, and the stream of fire 
between the receiving-ball and the atmospheric conductor was too 
vivid to look at. M. Peltier has found that the common fogs 
arising from the mere condensation of the moisture in the air are 
neutral, but that others, which are produced by exhalations from 
the earth, are sometimes positive, sometimes negative ; the sub- 
ject, however, requires further investigation. 

Though in long-continued mild rains there are no traces of 
electricity, yet, when rain or snow falls from the higher regions 
of the atmosphere, it is more or less developed, sometimes posi- 
tive, sometimes negative, depending a good deal on the direction 
of the wind. The atmosphere being positively electric, negative 
rain is supposed to arise from the evaporation of the drops in 
passing through dry air; the vapour carries off the positive elec- 
tricity and leaves the drop in a negative state — a circumstance 



ELECTRICITY. 287 

which seems to be confirmed b}^ the electricity of cascades, near 
which there always is more or less negative electricity; the posi- 
tive flows into the earth, while the other remains united to the 
drops of the cascade. 

The inductive action of the earth upon the clouds, and of the 
different strata of clouds on each other, produces great variations 
in their electrical state. If rain falls from the lowermost of two 
strata of positively electrical clouds, the inductive action of the 
earth renders the under surface positive and the upper negative, 
and the rain is positive. By-and-bye the under surface of the 
cloud and the earth become neutral; and after a time the lower 
cloud becomes charged with negative electricity by the induction 
of the upper strata, and the rain is then negatively electric. 
Clouds are very differently charged ; grey clouds have negative- 
red, white, and orange clouds positive electricity; and when 
clouds differently charged meet, an explosion takes place. When 
the sky is clear and the air calm and warm, a succession of small 
white fleecy clouds rising rapidly above the horizon, and flying 
swiftly in the very high regions of the atmosphere, is a certain 
presage of a thunder-storm. 

Electricity of each kind is probably elicited by the friction of 
currents of air, or masses of clouds moving rapidly in different 
directions, as in thunder-storms, when small white clouds are seen 
flying rapidly over the black mass; yet the quick and irregular 
motion of clouds in storms is probably owing to the strong elec- 
trical attraction and repulsion among themselves, though both may 
be concerned in these hostile encounters. When two clouds dif- 
ferently charged by the sudden condensation of vapour, and driven 
by contending winds, approach within a certain distance, the 
thickness of the coating of electricity increases on the two adjacent 
sides, and, when the accumulation becomes so great as to over- 
come the coercive pressure of the atmosphere between them, a 
discharge takes place which occasions a flash of lightning. The 
actual quantity of electricity in any part of a cloud is very small. 
The intensity of the flash depends upon the extent of surface 
occupied by the electricity, which acquires its intensity by its 
instantaneous condensation. 

The air, being a non-conductor, does not convey the electricity 
from the clouds to the earth, but it acquires from them an opposite 
electricity, and when the tension is very great the force of the 
electricity becomes irresistible, and an interchange takes place 
between the clouds and the earth, but the motion of the lightning 
is so rapid that it is difficult to ascertain when it goes from the 
clouds to the earth, or from the earth to the clouds, though there 
is no doubt it does both: explosions have burst from the ground, 
and people have been killed by them. 



288 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

When the air is highly rarified by heat, its coercive power is 
diminished, so that the electricity escapes from the clouds in the 
form of diffuse lambent sheets of hghtning- without thunder or 
rain, frequently seen in warm summer evenings, sometimes even 
near the zenith, and quite different from that sheet-lightning at the 
horizon which is in general only the reflection of the forked 
lightning of a distant storm. When the quantity of electricity 
developed by the sudden condensation of vapour is very great, 
the lightning is always forked ; its zigzag form is occasioned by 
the unequal conducting power of the air, by which it is sometimes 
divided into several branches. The author once saw a flash 
divide into four parallel streams — a very uncommon occurrence. 
Occasionally, in very great storms, the hghtning sends off lateral 
branches. It often appears as a globe of fire moving so slowly 
that it is visible for several seconds, while the flashes of forked 
lightning do not last the millionth part of a second. Professor 
Wheatstone, who has measured the velocity of hghtning by ex- 
periments of great ingenuity, found that it far surpasses the 
velocity of light, and would encircle the globe in the twinkling of 
an eye. This inconceivable velocity is beautifully exemplified 
in the electric telegraph, by which the most violent and terrific 
agent in nature is rendered obedient to man, and conveys his 
thoughts as rapidly as they are formed. The colour of lightning 
is generally a dazzHng white or blue, though in highly rarified air 
it is rose-colour or violet. 

The sudden compression of the air during the passage of light- 
ning must convert a great quantity of latent into sensible heat, for 
heat in a latent or insensible state exists in all bodies independent 
of their temperature. Heat is absorbed and becomes insensible 
to the thermometer when solids become liquids, and when liquids 
are changed to vapour ; and it again becomes sensible when 
vapour is condensed, and when liquids become solid. When 
water freezes, all the heat that kept it liquid is given out ; and 
when ice melts, it absorbs heat from everything near it. The air 
is full of heat in a latent state, whatever its temperature may be, 
but it can be squeezed out by sudden compression so as to kindle 
tinder. Every aerial wave, every sound, every word spoken 
must set free an infinitesimal quantity of heat ; so everything that 
tends to rarify the air must cause it to absorb a proportional 
quantity. 

The rolhng noise of thunder is probably owing to the difference 
between the velocity of hghtning and that of sound. Thunder 
may be regarded as originating in every point of a flash of light- 
ning at the same instant ; and as sound takes a considerable time 
to travel, it will arrive first from the nearest point ; and if the 
flash run in a direct hne from a person, the noise will come later 



THUNDER-STORMS. 289 

and later from the remote points of its path, in a continued roar. 
Should the direction of the flash be inclined, the succession of 
sounds will be more rapid and intense ; and if the lightning de- 
scribe a circular course above a person, the sound will arrive at 
the same instant from every point with a stunning crash.^* 

In passing to the earth, lightning follows the best conductors- 
metals by preference, then damp substances — which is the reason 
why men and animals are so often struck. If it meets with a bad 
conductor, it shivers it to pieces and scatters the fragments to a 
considerable distance. A powerful flash scatters gunpowder, 
while a feeble one ignites it ; the hardest trees are split and torn 
to shreds ; when a tree is struck, the heat of the flash converts 
the sap into steam, the expansive force of which shivers the tree. 
The surface of rocks is vitrified by it ; and when it falls on a 
sandy soil, its course underground is marked by vitrified tubes 
many feet long. 

Thunder-storms occur daily within the region of the Variables, 
which is also the region of storms : in countries under the influ- 
ence of the monsoons they are tremendous at the changes of 
these periodical winds ; where the trade-winds prevail they are 
hardly known, though electrical discharges are frequent at their 
limits. In Greece and Italy there are about 40 thunder-storms 
annually, which occur in spring and autumn, while north of the 
Alps they chiefly take place in summer. There are about 24 in 
the year on the coasts of the Atlantic and in Germany, but they 
are much more frequent among mountains than on plains. In the 
interior of the old continent they rarely occur in winter, and ' 
three-fourths of the number happen in summer. They are of 
such rare occurrence in high latitudes, that in a residence of 6 
years in Greenland Sir Charles Geiseke only heard it thunder 
once. 

Some storms arise from the contention of opposite currents in 
the air ; others are occasioned by currents of warm air ascending 
from the earth, which are suddenly condensed as they enter the 
upper regions of the atmosphere, and, as this sometimes happens 
at the hottest hour of the day, these storms are periodical for 
many successive days, recurring always at the same hour. 
Sometimes they extend over a great expanse of country, and the 
lightning darts from all points of the compass. A person may be 
killed at the distance of 20 miles from the explosion by the back 
stroke. If the two extremities of a highly-charged cloud dip towards 

** Sound travels at the rate of 1120 feet in a second in air at the 
temperature of 62° of Fahrenheit; so if that number be multiplied by 
the seconds elapsed between the flash of lightning and the thunder, the 
result will be the distance in feet at which the stroke took place. 
25 



290 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

the earth, they will repel the electricity of the earth, if it be of 
the same kind with their own, and will attract the other kind ; 
and if a discharge should take place at one end of the cloud, the 
equilibrium will instantly be restored by a flash from that part of 
the earth which is under the other, sufficiently strong to destroy 
life, and it is the most dangerous, though never so strong as the 
direct stroke. 

When thunder-clouds are very low, there is frequently no light- 
ning ; the electricity produced by induction is so powerful that it 
escapes from pointed objects in the shape of flame without heat, 
known as St. Elmo's fire. These flames are not unfrequently 
seen at the topmasts of ships and the extremities of their yard- 
arms. Bodies between the clouds and earth may be electrized 
by induction, and their electricity will be seen in the form of 
flame, as showers of phosphorescent snow. 

Phosphorescence is ascribed to electricity ; various substances 
emit light when decaying, as fish and wood. Although many 
marine animals are phosphorescent, yet the luminous appear- 
ance which the sea often assumes is not always to be attributed 
to them, but probably to the decaying animal matter it contains. 

The aurora is decidedly an electrical phenomenon. It generally 
appears soon after sunset in the form of a luminous arch stretching 
more or less from east to west, the most elevated point being 
always in the magnetic meridian of the place of the observer: 
across the arch the coruscations are rapid, vivid, and of various 
colours, darting like lightning to the zenith, and at the same time 
flitting laterally with incessant velocity. The brightness of the 
rays varies in an instant : they sometimes surpass the splendour 
of stars of the first magnitude, and often exhibit colours of admi- 
rable transparency, blood-red at the base, emerald-green in the 
middle, and clear yellow towards their extremity. Sometimes 
one, and sometimes a quick succession of luminous currents run 
from one end of the arch or bow to the other, so that the rays 
rapidly increase in brightness ; but it is impossible to say whether 
the coruscations themselves are actually affected by a horizontal 
motion of translation, or whether the more vivid light is con- 
veyed from ray to ray. The rays occasionally dart far past the 
zenith, vanish, suddenly reappear, and, being joined by others 
from the arch, form a magnificent corona or immense dome of 
light. The segment of the sky below the arch is quite black, as 
if formed by dense clouds ; yet M. Struve is said to have seen 
stars in it, consequently the blackness must be from contrast. 
The lower edge of the arch is evenly defined ; its upper margin 
is fringed by the coruscations, their convergence towards the 
north, and that of the arch itself, being probably an effect of per- 
spective. 



MAGNETISM. 291 

Either the aurora must be high above the earth, or its corus- 
cations must be very extensive, since the same display is visible 
at places wide asunder. It has frequently been seen in North 
America and all over the north of Europe at the same time, some- 
times even as far south as Italy, yet Sir Edward Parry certainly 
saw a ray dart from it to the ground near him. M. Struve, 
Admiral Wrangel, and others who have had many opportunities 
of seeing the aurora in high latitudes, assign a very moderate 
elevation to it. The arch probably passes through the magnetic 
pole ; hence, in the north of Greenland it lies south of the observer, 
and Sir Edward Parry saw it to the south in Melville Island, 
which is in 70° N. lat. ; consequently it must appear in the 
zenith in some places. Dr. Faraday conjectures that the electric 
equihbrium of the earth is restored by the aurora conveying the 
electricity from the poles to the equator, for it appears in the high 
southern latitudes, as well as in the northern ; and the Rev. G. 
Fisher has lately suggested, that, as the principal display of the 
aurora takes place at or near the margin of the polar ice, the 
electricity may be conveyed by the conducting power of the frozen 
particles which abound in the air in these latitudes, and which, 
being rendered fitfully luminous by the passage of the electricity, 
produce the arch and the ever-varying flashes of the aurora. 

The aurora has a powerful influence on the magnetic needle, 
even in places where the display is not seen. Its vibrations seem 
to be slower or quicker according as the auroral light is quiescent 
or in motion, and the disturbances of the magnetic needle and the 
auroral displays were simultaneous at Toronto, in Canada, on 13 
days out of 24, the remaining days having been clouded ; and 
contemporaneous observations show that on these 13 days there 
were also magnetic disturbances at Prague and at Van Diemen's 
Land, so that the " occurrence of aurora at Toronto on these 
occasions may be viewed as a local manifestation connected with 
magnetic effects, which, whatever may have been their origin, 
probably prevailed on the same day over the whole surface of the 
globe. "45 

MAGNETISM. 

Magnetism is one of those unseen imponderable existences 
which, like electricity and heat, are known only by their effects. 
It is certainly identical with electricity, for, although it never 
comes naturally into evidence, magnets can be made to exhibit all 
the phenomena of electrical machines. 

Terrestrial magnetism, which pervades the whole earth, is 

^ Colonel Sabine's Notes to '^ Kosmos." 



292 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

extremely complicated ; it varies both with regard to space and 
time, and, probably, depends upon the heat of the sun, upon his 
motion in the ecliptic, which produces changes of temperature, on 
galvanic currents circulating through the surface of the globe, 
and possibly on the earth's rotatory motion. 

The distribution of terrestrial magnetism is determined by the 
declination-needle, or mariner's compass, and the dipping-needle ; 
they consist of magnetized needles or bars of steel, so suspended 
that the dechnation-needle revolves in a horizontal direction, and 
the dipping-needle moves in a plane perpendicular to the horizon. 
The north end of the declination-needle or magnet points to the 
north, and the south end to the south, and it only remains at rest 
when in that position. The direction of the needle is the mag- 
netic meridian of the place of observation. 

The north end of the dipping-needle bends or dips below the 
horizon in the northern hemisphere, and the south end bends or 
dips beneath it in the southern hemisphere, and between the two 
there is a line which encircles the whole earth, where the dip- 
ping-needle remains horizontal. That Hne, which is the magnetic 
equator or line of no dip, crosses the terrestrial equator in several 
places, extending alternately on each side, but never deviating 
more than 12 degrees from it. The deviation is greater in that 
part of the Pacific where there are most islands, and it is greatest 
both to the south and north in traversing the continents of Africa 
and America ; thus, it appears that the configuration of the land 
and water has an influence on terrestrial magnetism. North and 
south of the magnetic equator the needle dips more and more, till 
at last it becomes perpendicular to the horizon in two points, or 
rather linear spaces, known as the north and south magnetic 
poles, which are quite distinct from the poles of the earth's rota- 
tion. One, whose position was determined by Captain Ross, is 
in 70° N. lat. and 97° W. long., while that in the southern 
hemisphere, determined by Sir James Ross, in the interior of 
Victoria Island, is in 70° S. lat. and 162° E. long. Lines of 
equal dip are such as may be drawn on a globe through all those 
places where the dipping-needle makes the same angle with the 
horizon. The angle of the dip is not always the same : according 
to Colonel Sabine, who is the highest authority on this subject, it 
has been decreasing in the northern hemisphere, for the last fifty 
years, at the rate of three minutes annually : it is also subject to 
variations of short periods, and it seems to be affected by shocks 
of earthquakes, even when very distant. 

The intensity of the magnetic force is as variable and even 
more complicated than the other magnetic phenomena: it is 
measured by the number of vibrations made by the declination- 
needle in a given time. It is very different in different parts of 



FOCI OF MAGNETIC INTENSITY. 293 

the earth, but there are foar points in which the intensity is 
greater than anywhere else. Two of these are in the northern 
and two in the southern hemisphere ; they neither coincide with 
the poles of the earth's rotation nor with the magnetic poles, nor 
are they all of equal intensity. 

One of these foci of maximum magnetic intensity is situate 
in North America, south-west from Fludson's Bay ; another is in 
northern Siberia in 120° E. long. In the southern hemisphere, 
one of the points of maximum magnetic intensity is in the South 
Atlantic in 20° S. lat. and 824° E. long., and the other is situate 
in 60° S. lat. and 131° 20' E. long.^e In consequence of the 
unequal intensity of the force in these 4 foci, the decrease in 
magnetic power from them towards the equator is extremely 
irregular, so that the dynamic equator, which is a line supposed 
to be drawn through all the points on the earth where the intensity 
is the least, encircles the globe in a waving line, which neither 
coincides with the geographical nor magnetic equator ; it forms 
the division between the magnetic intensities in the two hemi- 
spheres. Lines drawn on a globe through all the points w^here 
the magnetic intensity is the same are so complicated that it is 
scarcely possible to convey an idea of them in words. They form 
a series of ovals round each of the foci of maximum force, then a 
figure of 8 in each hemisphere having a focus and its ovals in 
each loop, then they open into tortuous lines which encompass 
the globe, but which become less so as they approach the dynamic 
equator. The comphcation is increased by the foci in the two 
hemispheres being unsymmetrically placed with regard to one 
another, as well as by the difference in their intensities. 

The declination or horizontal needle only remains at rest when 
in a magnetic meridian, that is, when it points to the north and 
south magnetic poles. The magnetic meridians coincide with 
the geographical meridians in some places, and in these the mag- 
net points to the true north and south, that is, to the poles of the 
earth's rotation. But if it be carried successively to different 
longitudes, it will deviate sometimes to the east, sometimes to the 
west of the true north. Imaginary lines on the globe, passing 
through all places where the magnet points to the poles of the 
earth's rotation, are lines of no variation ; and lines passing 

*^ The foci are all of different intensities; that in the South Atlantic, 
discovered by M. Erman, has the least intensity of the four, and the 
other in the southern hemisphere, discovered by Sir James Ross, has 
the greatest; taking 1 as the unit at the magnetic equator in Peru, their 
intensities are as 2-071 and 0-706. In the northern hemisphere the 
American focus is more intense than that in Siberia, which is moving 
from west to east, while the minor focus in the southern hemisphere 
is moving from east to west. 
25* 



294 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

through all places where the magnet deviates by an equal quan- 
tity from the geographical meridians are lines of equal variation ; 
they are also very irregular, and form two closed systems or 
loops, — that is, they surround two points, one in northern Siberia 
and another in the Pacific, nearly in the meridian of the Pitcairn 
Islands and the Marquesas. *7 

The whole magnetic system is perpetually undergoing secular 
and periodical changes, which are so irregular and complicated 
that half a century is sufficient to alter the form and position of 
all the lines that have been mentioned. The foci of magnetic 
intensity, and the whole system represented by the magnetic 
lines, are moving along the two hemispheres in opposite direc- 
tions ; those in the northern hemisphere are going from west to 
east, and those in the southern from east to west ; and as the foci 
of maximum intensity move with different velocities, the forms, 
as well as the places, of the curves are slowly, yet continually, 
changing. The weaker magnetic focus in the northern hemi- 
sphere moved through 50 degrees of longitude in 250 years. 

The declination is subject to periodic variations depending 
upon the position of the moon, and to annual variations arising 
from the motion of the sun in the ecHptic, as well as to horary 
variations corresponding to changes of temperature from the 
diurnal rotation of the earth. 

Throughout the middle latitudes of the northern hemisphere 
the north end of the magnet has a mean motion from east to west 
from eight in the morning till half-past one, it then moves to the 
east till evening, after which it makes another excursion to the 
west, and returns again to its original position at eight in the 
morning. The extent of its variation is greater in the day than, 
in the night, in summer than in winter. It decreases from the 
middle latitudes in Europe, where it is 13 or 14 minutes, to the 
equator, where it is only 3 or 4 ; but at the equator the variations 
are performed with extreme regularity. The horary motions of 
the south end of the magnet in the southern hemisphere are ac- 
complished in an exactly opposite direction. Between these two 
magnetic hemispheres there is a fine passing through an infinity 
of places, and very nearly coinciding with the line of minimum 
magnetic intensity, where the horary phenomena of both hemi- 
spheres are combined, each predominating alternately at opposite 



"" The author is indebted to the admirable and profound investiga- 
tions of Colonel Sabine for almost all she knows on the subject of ter- 
restrial magnetism. In these, and in his notes on the English transla- 
tion of " Kosmosj" the reader will find all that is most interesting on the 
subject. In his own works there are plates of the course of the different 
magnetic lines mentioned in the text. 



MAGNETIC STORMS. 295 

seasons. At St. Helena, which is one of the places in question, 
and nearly on the line of minimum intensity, the horary motion 
of the north end of the magnet corresponds in direction during 
one half of the year with the movement in the northern hemi- 
sphere, and in the other half of the year the direction at the same 
hours corresponds with that in the southern hemisphere, the pas- 
sage from the one to the other being at the equinoxes, when the 
diurnal variations at the usual hours partake more or less of the 
characteristics of both on different days.'*^ 

It thus appears that there are six points on the earth peculiarly 
remarkable for magnetic phenomena, all of which are distinct 
from one another, and from the poles of the earth's rotation — 
namely, two magnetic poles where the dipping-needle makes an 
angle of 90 degrees with the horizon. The magnetic equator 
corresponds with these in every point of which the angle of the 
dip is zero : it encircles the earth, and intersects the terrestrial 
equator, but does not coincide with it. The other four points are 
the foci of maximum magnetic intensity, and to them the dyna- 
mical equator or line of minimum magnetic intensity corresponds, 
also surrounding the earth in an irregular line, but which coin- 
cides with neither the terrestrial nor magnetic equator. Besides 
these, and either partly or nearly coinciding with the line of 
minimum intensity, is that line which is supposed to pass through 
all places where the horary variations of the magnet partake of 
the phenomena of each hemisphere alternately. 

The earth's magnetism is subject to vast unaccountable com- 
motions or storms of immense extent, which occur at irregular 
intervals, and are of short duration. In 1818, a magnetic storm, 
shown by a violent agitation of the needle, took place at the same 
time over 47 degrees of longitude, extending through all the 
countries from Paris to Kasan ; and on the 25th of September, 
1841, one of these storms was simultaneously observed at Toronto 
in North America, at the Cape of Good Hope, Prague in Europe, 
at Macao in China, and there is reason to beheve that it extended 
to Van Diemen's Land. Similar storms have happened simul- 
taneously in Sicily and at Upsala in Sweden ; others of less ex- 
tent and shorter periods more frequently occur, and are, like the 
greater storms, not to be attributed to any known cause. 

M. Necker de Saussure has traced a marked coincidence be- 
tween the prevailing direction of the stratified masses .of the moun- 
ts At St. Helena, the north end of the needle reaches its eastern ex- 
treme in May. June, July, and August, and nearly at the same hours 
it reaches its western extreme in November, December, January, and 
February. The passage from one to the other takes place at, or 'soon 
after, the equinoxes in March and April, September and October. — 
Colonel Sabine's Notes to "Kosmos." 



296 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

tain chains and that of the curves of equal magnetic intensity. 
The coincidence is perfect in the Ural chain, for there the Hnes 
of force tend north and south ; and they do not deviate much from 
the stratification in the great plains of European Russia. There 
is every reason to believe that a coincidence takes place in the 
Scandinavian mountains, for a line of equal magnetic intensity 
passes parallel to the Norwegian coast. In Scotland, a line almost 
coincides with the Grampians ; and as it becomes less northerly 
before reaching Portugal and Spain, it is there also in singular 
coincidence with the sierras on the table-land ; the Pyrenees, 
however, form an exception to the law. A magnetic line follows 
the break of the chain of the Alps wnth great precision. The 
intersection of two upheavels makes these mountains alter their 
direction from S.W. and N.E. to E. nearly, and near jto that 
change the magnetic line takes a similar bend, and coincides with 
the Caucasus, Taurus, Hindoo-Coosh, Himalaya, and Chinese 
mountains, after which it again tends to the north, and follows 
the Yablonia chain to Behring's Straits. 

In Africa, the lines of equal magnetic force coincide with the 
Komri, and with the lofty sea-coast range which unites the moun- 
tains of Abyssinia with those at the Cape of Good Hope. Through- 
out North America the lines of equal force coincide with the 
Alleghanies, and on the coast of the Pacific they take the direction 
of the Rocky Mountains. In Mexico, the stratified rocks are 
parallel to the mountains of Anahuac, which is the same wnth 
the direction of the magnetic curves, and a similar coincidence 
takes place in the Parima ranges, and in the coast-chain of Vene- 
zuela. The Andes, and the lines of equal magnetic intensity, 
are completely discordant, for they cross one another ; but lines 
of equal magnetic force stretch from the southern promontories of 
America and Asia to the mountains of Victoria Land. 

There is strong presumptive evidence of the influence of the 
electric and magnetic currents on the formation and direction of 
the mountain masses and mineral veins, but their slow persevering 
action on the ultimate atoms of matter has been placed beyond 
doubt by the formation of rubies and other gems, as well as various 
other mineral substances, by voltaic electricity. 

The existence of electric currents on the surface of the earth 
has been deduced from terrestrial magnetism, and from the con- 
nection between the diurnal variations of the magnet and the ap- 
parent motion of the sun ; also from the electro-magnetic proper- 
ties of metalliferous veins, and from atmospheric electricity, which 
is continually passing between the air and the earth. 

Dr. Faraday's brilliant discoveries have changed the received 
opinions with regard to the magnetic properties of matter. Al- 
though all bodies are magnetic, they show that it assumes a totally 



MAGNETIC PROPERTIES OF MATTER. 297 

different form in different substances. For example, if a bar of 
iron be freely suspended between the poles of an electro-magnet, 
or very powerful horse-shoe magnet, it will be attracted by both 
poles, and will rest in the direction between them — that is, on the 
line of force. But if a bar of bismuth be suspended in the same 
manner, it will be repelled by both poles, and will assume a direc- 
tion at right angles to that which the iron took, and thus the same 
force, whether electric or magnetic, produces opposite effects upon 
these two metals. Substances affected after the manner of iron 
are magnetic — those affected after the manner of bismuth are said 
to be diamagnetic. All substances come under one or other of 
these two classes : the diamagnetic are infinitely more abundant 
than the magnetic ; almost all bodies on earth belong to that class. 
Many of the metals, acids, oils, sugar, starch, animal matter, flame, 
and all the gases, whether light or heavy, have the diamagnetic 
property less or more, but oxygen less than any other, and that 
is the reason why atmospheric air is the most feebly diamagnetic 
of all substances at its natural temperature ; for when very hot it 
becomes more diamagnetic, and if extremely cold it takes a place 
among the magnetic class. Important results with regard to the 
magnetic state of the globe will undoubtedly be deduced from this 
new property of matter, and Dr. Faraday's observations on that 
subject show that he is not without such anticipations. 

" When we consider the magnetic condition of the earth as a 
whole, without reference to its possible relation to the sun, and 
reflect upon the enormous amount of diamagnetic matter which 
forms its crust; and when we remember that magnetic curves of 
a certain amount of force, universal in their presence, are passing 
through these matters, and keeping them constantly in a state of 
tension, and therefore of action, we cannot doubt that some great 
purpose, of utility to the system and to us its inhabitants, is ful- 
filled by it. If the sun have anything to do with the magnetism 
of the globe, then it is possible that part of this effect may be due 
to the action of the light that comes to us from that body ; and in 
that view the air seems most strikingly placed round our sphere, 
investing it with a transparent diamagnetic, which, therefore, is 
permeable to his rays, and, at the same time, moving with great 
velocity across them. Such conditions seem to suggest the pos- 
sibility of magnetism being thence generated." 



298 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

Vegetation — Nourishment and Growth of Plants — Effects of the differ- 
ent Hays of the Solar Spectrum — Classes — Botanical Districts. 

In the present state of the globe, a third part only of its surface is 
occupied by land, and probably not more than a fourth part of 
that is inhabited by man, bat animals and vegetables have a 
wider range. The greater part of the land is clothed with vege- 
tation and inhabited by quadrupeds, the air is peopled with birds 
and insects, and the sea teems with living creatures and plants. 
These organized beings are not scattered promiscuously, but all 
classes of them have been originally placed in regions suited to 
their respective wants. Many animals and plants are indigenous 
only in determinate spots, while a thousand others might have 
supported them as well, and to many of which they have been 
transported by man. 

Plants extract inorganic substances from the ground, which are 
indispensable to bring them to maturity, but the atmosphere sup- 
plies the vegetable creation with the principal part of its food. 

The black or brown mould which is so abundant is the produce 
of decayed vegetables. When the autumnal leaves, the spoil of 
the summer, fall to the ground, and their vitality is gone, they 
enter into combination witht he oxygen of the atmosphere, and 
convert it into an equal volume of carbonic acid gas, which, con- 
sequently, exists abundantly in every good soil, and is the most 
important part of the food of vegetables. This process is slow, 
and stops as soon as the air in the soil is exhausted ; but the 
plough, by loosening the earth, and permitting the atmosphere to 
enter more freely and penetrate deeper into the ground, acceler- 
ates the decomposition of the vegetable matter, and consequently 
the formation of carbonic acid. 

In loosening and refining the mould, the common earth-worm 
is the fellow-labourer with man ; it eats earth, and, after extract- 
ing the nutritious part, ejects the refuse, which is the finest soil, 
and may be seen lying in heaps at the mouth of its burrow. So 
instrumental is this creature in preparing the ground, that it is 
said that there is not a particle of the finer vegetable mould that 
has not passed through the intestines of a worm : thus, the most 
feeble of living things is employed by Providence to accomplish 
the most important ends. 

The food of the vegetable creation consists of carbon, hydrogen, 



PRODUCTION OF CARBON. 299 

nitrogen, and oxygen — all of which plants obtain entirely from 
the atmosphere in the form of carbonic acid gas, water, and am- 
monia. They imbibe these three substances, and, after having 
decomposed them, they give the oxygen to the air, and consoli- 
date the carbon, water, and nitrogen into wood, leaves, floAvers, 
and fruit. 

The vitality of plants is a chemical process entirely due to the 
sun's light ; it is most active in clear sunshine, feeble in the 
shade, and nearly suspended in the night, when plants, like ani- 
mals, have their rest. 

The atmosphere contains only one two-thousandth part of car- 
bonic acid gas, yet that small quantity yields enough of carbon to 
form the solid mass of all the magnificent forests and herbs that 
clothe the face of the earth, and the supply of that necessary 
ingredient in the composition of the atmosphere is maintained by 
the breath of animals, by volcanos, and by combustion. The 
green parts of plants constantly imbibe carbonic acid in the day ; 
they decompose it, assimilate the carbon, and return the oxygen 
pure to the atmosphere. As the chemical action is feeble in the 
shade and in gloomy weather, only a part of the carbonic acid is 
decomposed, then both oxygen and carbonic acid are given out by 
the leaves ; but during the darkness of the night a chemical action 
of a different character takes place, and almost all the carbonic 
acid is returned unchanged to the atmosphere, together with the 
moisture which is evaporated from the leaves both night and day. 
Thus, plants give out pure oxygen during the day, and carbonic 
acid and water during the night. 

Since the vivifying action of the sun brings about all these 
changes, a superabundance of oxygen is exhaled by the tropical 
vegetation in a clear unclouded sky, where the sun's rays are 
most energetic, and atmospheric moisture most abundant. In the 
middle and higher latitudes, on the contrary, under a more feeble 
sun and a gloomy sky, subject to rain, snow, and frequent atmo- 
spheric changes, carbonic acid is given out in greater quantity by 
the less vigorous vegetation. But here, as with regard to heat 
and moisture, equilibrium is restored by the winds ; the tropical 
currents carry the excess of oxygen along the upper strata of the 
atmosphere to higher latitudes, to give breath and heat to men 
and animals ; while the polar currents, rushing along the ground, 
convey the surplus carbonic acid to feed the tropical forests and 
jungles. Harmony exists between the animal and vegetable 
creations ; animals consume the oxygen of the atmosphere, which 
is restored by the exhalation of plants, while plants consume the 
carbonic acid exhaled by men and animals ; the existence of each 
is thus due to their reciprocal dependence. Few of the great 
cosmical phenomena have only one end to fulfil, they are the 
ministers of the manifold desio^ns of Providence. 



300 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

When a seed is thrown into the ground, the vital principal is 
developed by heat and moisture, and part of the substance of the 
seed is formed into roots, which suck up water mixed with car- 
bonic acid from the soil, decompose it, and consoHdate the carbon. 
In this stage of their growth, plants derive their whole sustenance 
from the ground. As soon, however, as the sugar and mucilage 
of the seed appear above the ground, in the form of leaves or 
shoots, they absorb and decompose the carbonic acid of the atmo- 
sphere, retain the carbon for their food, give out the oxygen in 
the day, and pure carbonic acid in the night. In proportion as 
plants grow, they derive more of their food from the air and less 
from the soil, till their fruit is ripened, and then the whole of their 
nourishment is derived from the atmosphere. Trees are fed from 
the air after their fruit is ripe till their leaves fall; annuals till 
they die. Air-plants, and several species of cactus and others, 
derive all their food from the atmosphere. It is wonderful that 
so small a quantity of carbonic acid as exists in the air should 
suffice to supply the whole vegetation of the world — and still 
more wonderful that a seed, minute enough to be wafted invisibly 
by a breath of air, should be the theatre of all the chemical changes 
that make it germinate. *9 

Plants absorb water from the ground by their roots ; they de- 
compose it, and the hydrogen combines in different proportions 
with their carbonic acid to form wood, sugar, starch, gum, vegeta- 
ble, oils, and acids. As the green parts combine with the oxygen 
of the air, especially during night, when the functions of plants 
are torpid, it is assimilated on the return of daylight, and assists 
in forming oils, resins, and acids. The combination of the oxygen 
of the air with the leaves, and also with the blossom and fruit, 
during night, is quite unconnected with the vital process, as it is 
the same in dead plants. An acid exists in the juice of every 
plant, generally in combination with an alkali. It must be ob- 
served, however, that these different substances are produced at 
different stages in the growth ; for example, starch is formed in 
the roots, wood, stalk, and seed, but it is converted into sugar as 
the fruit ripens, and the more starch the sweeter the fruit becomes. 
Most of these new compounds are formed between the flowering 
of the plant and the ripening of the fruit, and indeed they furnish 
the materials for the flowers, fruit, and seed. 

Ammonia, the third organic constituent of plants, is the last 
residue from the decay and putrefaction of animal matter. It is 
volatilized, and rises into the atmosphere, where it exists as a gas, 

^^ The sporules or seeds of the fungi are so minute that M. Freis 
counted above ten millions in a single plant of the recticularia maxima: 
they were so subtile that they were like smoke. 



SOLAR SPECTRUM. 301 

but in so small a quantity that it is with difficulty detected by 
chemical analysis ; yet, as it is very soluble in water, enough is 
brought to the ground by rain to supply the vegetable world. 
Ammonia enters plants by their roots along with rain-water, and 
is resolved within them into its constituent elements, hydrogen 
and nitrogen. The hydrogen aids in forming the wood, acids, 
and other substances before mentioned ; while the nitrogen enters 
into every part of the plant and forms new compounds ; it exists 
in the blossom and fruit before it is ripe, and in the wood, as albu- 
men; it also forms gluten, which is the nutritious part of wheat, 
barley, oats, and all other cerealia, as well as of esculent roots, as 
potatoes, beet-root, &c. Nitrogen exists abundantly in peas, beans, 
and pulse of every kind ; it enters into the composition of most 
elementary vegetable substances ; in short, a plant may grow 
without ammonia, but it cannot produce seed or fruit ; the use of 
animal manure is to supply plants with this essential article of 
their food. Thus, the decomposition and consolidation of the ele- 
mentary food of plants, the formation of the green parts, the ex- 
halation of moisture by their leaves, its absorption by their roots, 
and all the other circumstances of vegetable life, are owing to the 
illuminating power of the sun. Heat can be supplied artificially 
in our northern climates, but it is impossible to replace the 
splendour of a southern sun. His illuminating influence is dis- 
played in a remarkable degree by the cacaha ficoides ; its leaves 
combine with the oxygen of the atmosphere during the night, 
and are as sour as sorrel in the morning; as the sun rises they 
gradually lose their oxygen, and are tasteless at noon ; by the 
continued action of light they lose more and more, till towards 
evening they become bitter. The difference of a clear or cloudy 
sky has an immense effect on vegetation ; the ripening of fruit 
depends upon the habitual serenity of the sky more than on sum- 
mer temperature alone. 

The blue rays of the solar spectrum have most effect on the 
germination of seed; the yellow rays, which are the most lumi- 
nous, on the growing plant. That is on account of the chemical 
rays, now so well known by their action in Daguerreotype im- 
pressions. They are most abundant beyond the visible part of 
the solar spectrum, and diminish through the violet, blue, and 
green, to the yellow, where they cease. They penetrate the 
ground, and have a much greater influence on the germination of 
seeds than ordinary light or darkness. That invisible principle, 
together with hght, is essential to the formation of the colouring 
matter of leaves ; it is most active in spring, and is in very con- 
siderable excess compared with the quantity of light and heat ; 
but as summer advances the reverse takes place; the calorific 
radiation, or those hot rays corresponding to the extreme red of 
26 



302 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

the spectrum, which facilitate the flowering and forming of the 
fruit, become by far the most abundant ; and a set of invisible 
rays, which exist near the point of maximum heat in the solar 
spectrum, are also most abundant in summer. Mr. Hunt found 
that the hot rays immediately beyond the visible red destroy the 
colour of palm-leaves; and for that reason the glass of the palm- 
house at Kew Gardens is tinged pale yellow-green by oxide of 
copper, which excludes the scorching rays in question, though it 
is permeable by the other rays of heat, those of light, and the 
chemical rays.'° 

In spring and summer the oxygen taken in by the green leaves 
in the night aids in the formation of oils, acids, and the other 
parts that contain it ; but as soon as autumn comes, the vitality or 
chemical action of vegetables is weakened; and the oxygen, no 
longer given out in the day, though still taken in during the night, 
becomes a minister of destruction; it changes the colour of the 
leaves, and consumes them when they fall. Nitrogen, so essen- 
tial during the life of plants, also resumes its chemical character 
when they die, and by its escape hastens their decay. 

Although the food which constitutes the mass of plants is de- 
rived principally from water and the gases of the atmosphere, 
fixed substances are also requisite for their growth and perfection, 
and these they obtain from the earth by their roots. The in- 
organic matters are the alkalis, phosphates, silica, sulphur, iron, 
and others. 

It has already been mentioned that vegetable acids are found 
in the juices of all the families of plants. They generally are in 
combination with one or other of the alkaline substances, as lime, 
soda, potash, and magnesia, which are as essential to the existence 
of plants as the carbonic acid by which these acids are formed : 
for example, vines have potash ; plants used as dyes never give 
vivid colours without it; all leguminous plants require it, and 

^^ The solar spectrum, or coloured image of the sun, formed by 
passing a sunbeam through a prism, is composed of a variety of invisi- 
ble as well as visible rays. The chemical rays are most abundant 
beyond the violet end of the spectrum, and decrease through the violet, 
blue, and green, to the yellow, where they cease. The rays of heat 
are in excess a little beyond the red end, and gradually decrease 
towards the violet end. Besides these there are two insulated spots at 
a considerable distance from the red, where the heat is a maximum. 
Were the rays of heat visible, they would exhibit differences as distinct 
as the coloured rays, so varied are their properties according to their 
position in the spectrum. There are also peculiar rays which produce 
phosphorescence, others whose properties are not quite made out, and 
probably many undiscovered influences; for time has not yet fully 
revealed the sublimity of that creation, when God said, '^Let there be 
light — and there was light.'' 



NOURISHMENT OF PLANTS. 303 

only grow naturally on ground that contains it. None of the corn 
tribe can produce perfect seeds unless they have both potash and 
phosphate of magnesia: nor can they or any of the grasses thrive 
without silica, which gives the hard coating to straw, to the beard 
of wheat and barley, to grass, canes, and bamhoos ; it is even found 
in solid lumps in the hollows and joints of cane, known in India 
by the name of tabashir. To bring the cerealia to perfection, it 
is indispensable that in their growth they should be supplied with 
carbonic acid for the plant, silica to give it strength and firmness, 
and nitrogen for the grain. 

Phosphoric acid, combined with an earth or alkali, is found in 
the ashes of all vegetables, and is essential to many. Pulse con- 
tain but little of it, and on that account are less nutritious than 
the cereaha. The family of the cruciferae, as cabbages, turnips, 
mustard, &c., contain sulphur in addition to the substances com- 
mon to the growth of all plants ; each particular tribe has its ov/n 
peculiarities, and requires a combination suited to it. On that 
account there is often a marked difference in the arborescent 
vegetation on the same mountain, depending on the nature of- the 
rocks. 

The ocean furnishes some of the matters found in plants ; the 
prodigious quantity of sea-water constantly evaporated carries 
with it salt in a volatilized state, which, dispersed over the land 
by the wind, supplies the ground with salt and the other ingre- 
dients of sea-water. The inorganic matters which enter plants 
by their roots are carried by the sap to every part of the vegetable 
system. The roots imbibe all liquids presented to them indis- 
criminately, but they retain only the substances they require at 
the various stages of their growth, and throw out such parts as 
are useless, together with the efl^ete or dead matter remaining 
after the nutriment has been extracted from it. Plants, like 
animals, may be poisoned, but the power they have of expelling 
deleterious substances by their roots generally restores them to 
health. The feculent matter injures the soil; besides, after a 
time the ground is drained of the inorganic matter requisite for 
any one kind of plant : hence the necessity for a change or rotation 
of crops. 

A quantity of heat is set free and also becomes latent in the 
various transmutations that take place in the interior of plants ; so 
that they, like the animal creation, have a tendency to a tempera- 
ture of their own, independent of external circumstances. 

The quantity of electricity requisite to resolve a grain weight of 
water into its elementary oxygen and hydrogen is equal to the 
quantity'- of atmospheric electricity which is active in a very power- 
ful thunder-storm ; hence, some i lea may be formed of the intense 
energy exerted by the vegetable creation in the decomposition of 
the vast mass of water and other matters necessary for its suste- 



304 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

nance. But there must be a compensation in the consolidation of 
the vegetable food, otherwise a tremendous quantity would be in 
perpetual activity. It is said to be given out from the points of 
their leaves, so, possibly, some part of the atmospheric electricity 
may be ascribed to this cause; but there is reason to believe that 
electricity, excited by the power of solar light, constitutes the che- 
mical vitality of vegetation. 

The colouring matter of flowers is various, if we may judge from 
the effect which the solar spectrum has upon their expressed juices. 
The colour is very brilhant on the tops of mountains and in the 
Arctic lands. Possibly the diminished weight of the air may have 
some effect, for it can scarcely be supposed that barometrical 
changes should be entirely without influence on vegetation. 

The perfume of flowers and leaves is owing to a volatile oil, 
which is often carried by the air to a great distance : in hot cli- 
mates it is most powerful in the morning and evening. The odour 
of the Humiria has been perceived at the distance of three miles 
from the coast of South America, a species of Tetracera sends its 
perfume as far from the island of Cuba, and the aroma of the Spice 
Islands is wafted out to sea. The variety of perfumes is infinite, 
and shows the innumerable combinations of which a few simple 
substances are capable, and the extreme minuteness of the parti- 
cles of matter. 

In northern and mean latitudes, winter is a time of complete 
rest to the vegetable world, and in tropical climates the vigour of 
vegetation is suspended during the dry, hot season, to be resumed 
at the return of the periodical rains. The periodical phenomena 
of the appearance of the first leaves, the flowering, ripening of the 
fruit, and the fall of the leaf, depend upon the annual and diurnal 
changes of temperature, moisture, electricity, and perhaps on mag- 
netism, and succeed with such perfect harmony and regularity, 
that, were there a sufficient number of observations, lines might 
be drawn on a globe passing through all places where the leaves 
of certain plants appear simultaneously, and also for the other prin- 
cipal phases of vegetation. In places where the same plant flowers 
on the same day, the fruit may not ripen at the same period in 
both ; it would therefore be interesting to know what relation lines 
passing through those would have to one another and to the iso- 
thermal hnes ; more especially with regard to the plants indispen- 
sable to man, since the periodicity of vegetation affects his whole 
social condition.^^ 

^^ Professor Quetelet is desirous that the periodical phenomena of 
vegetation should be observed at a number of places, in order to estab- 
lish a comparison between the periods at which they take place ; and 
for that purpose he gives a list of the commonest plants, as lilac, labur- 
num, elder, birch, oak, horse-chestnut, peach, pear, crocus, daisy, &c., 
which he himself observes annually at Brussels. 



PROPAGATION OF PLANTS. 305 

Almost all plants sleep during the night; some show it in their 
leaves, others in their blossom. The Mimosa tribe not only close 
their leaves at night, but their foot-stalks droop ; in a clover-field 
not a leaf opens until after sunrise. The common daisy is a fami- 
liar instance of a sleeping flower ; it shuts up its blossom in the 
evening, and opens its white and crimson-tipped star, the "day's 
e3'-e," to meet the early beams of the morning sun ; and then also 
"Avinking mary-buds begin to ope their golden eyes." The crocus, 
tulip, convolvulus, and many others, close their blossoms at differ- 
ent hours towards evening, some to open them again, others never. 
The ivy-leaved lettuce opens at eight in the morning, and closes 
for ever at four in the afternoon. Some plants seem to be wide 
awake all night, and to give out their perfume then only, or at 
nightfall. Many of the jessamines are most fragrant during the 
twilight : the Olea fragrans, the Daphne odorata, and the night- 
stock reserve their sweetness for the midnight hour, and the night- 
flowering Cereus turns night into day. It begins to expand its 
magnificent sweet-scented blossom in the twilight, it is full blown 
at midnight, and closes, never to open again, with the dawn of 
day ; — these are "the bats and owls of the vegetable kingdom. "^^ 

Many plants brought from warm to temperate climates have be- 
come habituated to their new situation, and flourish as if they were 
natives of the soil; such as have been accustomed to flower and 
rest at particular seasons change their habits by degrees, and adapt 
themselves to the seasons of the country that has adopted them. 
It is much more difficult to transfer alpine plants to the plains. 
Whether from a change of atmospheric pressure or mean temper- 
ature, all attempts to cultivate them at a lower level generally 
fail : it is much easier to accustom a plant of the plains to a higher 
situation. 

Plants are propagated by seeds, offsets, cuttings, and buds ; hence 
they, but more especially trees, have myriads of seats of life, a 
congeries of vital systems acting in concert, but independently of 
each other, every one of which might become a new plant. In 
this respect the fir and pine tribe are inferior to deciduous trees, 
which lose their leaves annually, because they are not easily pro- 
pagated except by seeds. It has been remarked that all plants 
that are propagated by buds from a common parent stock have the 
same duration of life; this has been noticed particularly with re- 
gard to some species of apple-trees in England. It appears that 

^2 Dandelion opens at five or six in the morning, and shuts at nine in 
the evening; the goat's-beard wakes at three in the morning, and shuts 
at five or six in the afternoon. The orange-coloured Escholtzia is so 
sensitive that it closes during the passage of a cloud. '- The marigold 
that goes to bed wi' the sun, and with him rises weeping," with many 
more, are instances of the sleep of planis, 
26* 



306 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

all the garden varieties of fruit, whether from buds, layers, or cut- 
tings, wear out after a time ; and that seedlings have a great ten- 
dency to revert to the original wild character of the pJant. 

A certain series of transitions takes place throughout the lives 
of plants, each part being transformed and passing into another; 
a law that was first observed by the illustrious poet Giithe. For 
example, the embryo leaves pass into common leaves, these into 
bractese, the bracteas into sepals, the sepals into petals, which are 
transformed into stamens and anthers, and these again pass into 
ovaries with their styles and stigmas, that are to become the fruit 
and ultimately the seed of a new plant. 

Plants are naturally divided into three classes, differing mate- 
rially in organization : — The Cryptogamia, whose flowers and 
seeds are either too minute to be easily visible, or are hidden in 
some part of the plant, as in fungi, mosses, ferns, and lichens, 
which are of the least perfect organization. Next to these are the 
monocotyledonous plants, as grasses and palms, in which the foot- 
stalks of the old leaves form the outside of the stem ; plants of this 
class have but one-seed-lobe, which forms one little leaf in their 
embryo state. Their flowers and fruit are generally referable to 
some law in which the number 3 prevails, as, for example, the 
petals and other parts are three in number. The dicotyledonous 
plants form the third class, which is the most perfect in its orga- 
nization, and by much the most numerous, including the trees of 
the forest and most of the flowering shrubs and herbs. They in- 
crease by coatings from without, as trees, where the growth of 
each year forms a concentric circle of wood round the pith or cen- 
tre of the stem: the seeds of these plants have two lobes, which 
in their embryo state appear first in two little leaves above ground, 
like most of the European species. The parts of the flowers and 
fruit of this class generally have some relation to the number 5. 

The three botanical classes are distributed in very different pro- 
portions in different zones: monocotyledonous plants, such as 
grasses and palms, are much more rare than the dicotyledonous 
class. Between the tropics there are four of the latter to one of 
the grass or palm tribes, in the temperate zones six to one, and in 
the polar regions only two to one, because, mosses and lichens are 
most abundant in the high latitudes, where dicotyledonous plants 
are comparatively rare. In the temperate zones one-sixth of the 
plants are annuals, omitting the cryptogamia ; in the torrid zone 
scarcely one plant in twenty is annual, and in the polar regions 
only one in thirty. The number of ligneous vegetables increases 
on approaching the equator, yet in North America there are 120 
different species of forest-trees, whereas in the same latitudes in 
Europe there are only 34. The social plants, grasses, heaths, 
furze, broom, daisies, &c., which cover large tracts, are rare be 



BOTANICAL DISTRICTS. 307 

tween the tropics, except on the mountains and table-lands and 
on the llanos of equatorial America. 

Equinoctial America has a more extensive and richer vegeta- 
tion than any other part of the world ; Europe has not above half 
the number of indigenous species of plants ; Asia, with its islands, 
has somewhat less than Europe ; Austraha, with its islands in the 
Pacific, still less ; and there are fewer vegetable productions in 
Africa than in any part of the globe of the same extent. 

Since the constitution of the atmosphere is very much the same 
everywhere, vegetation depends principally on the sun's hght, 
moisture, and the mean annual temperature, and it is also in some 
degree regulated by the heat of summer in the temperate zones, 
and also by exposure, for such plants as require warmth are found 
at a lower level on the north than on the south side of a mountain. 
Between the tropics, wherever rain does not fall, the soil is burnt 
up and is as unfruitful as that exposed to the utmost rigour of frost ; 
but where moisture is combined with heat and light, the luxuriance 
of the vegetation is beyond description. The abundance and vio- 
lence of the periodical rains combine with the intense light and 
heat to render the tropical forests and jungles almost impervious 
from the rankness of the vegetation. This exuberance gradually 
decreases with the distance from the equator ; it also diminishes 
progressively as the height above the level of the sea increases, so 
that each height has a corresponding parallel of latitude where the 
climates and floras are similar, till the perpetual snow on the moun- 
tain-tops, and its counterpart in the polar regions, have a vegeta- 
tion that scarcely rises above the surface of the ground. Hence, 
in" ascending the Himalaya or Andes from the luxuriant plains of 
the Ganges or Amazons, changes take place in the vegetation ana- 
logous to what a traveller would meet with in a journey from the 
equator to the poles. This law of decrease, though perfectly re- 
gular over a wide extent, is perpetually interfered with by local 
climate and soil. From the combination of various causes, as the 
distribution of land and water, their different powers of absorption 
and radiation, together with the form, texture, and clothing of the 
land, and the prevailing winds, it is found that the isothermal lines, 
or imaginary lines drawn through places on the surface of the globe 
which have the same mean annual temperature, do not correspond 
with the parallels of latitude. Thus, in North America the climate 
is much colder than in the corresponding European latitudes. 
Gluebec is in the latitude of Paris, and the country is covered with 
deep snow four or five months in the year, and it has occurred that 
a summer has passed there in which not more than 60 days have 
been free from frost. 

In the southern hemisphere, beyond the 34th parallel, the 
summers are colder and the winters milder than in correspond- 



308 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY.. 

ing latitudes of the northern hemisphere. Neither does the 
temperature of mountains vary exactly with their height above 
the sea ; other causes, as prevailing winds, difference of radiation, 
and geological structure, concur in producing irregularities which 
have a powerful effect on the vegetable world. 

However, no similarity of existing circumstances can account 
for whole families of plants being confined to one particular 
country, or even to a very limited district, which, as far as we 
can judge, might have grown equally well on many others. 
Latitude, elevation, soil, and climate, are but secondary causes 
in the distribution of the vegetable kingdom, and are totally inade- 
quate to explain why there are numerous distinct botanical dis- 
tricts in the continents and islands, each of which has its own 
vegetation, whose limits are most decided when they are separated 
by the ocean, mountain-chains, sandy deserts, salt-plains, or 
internal seas. Each of these districts is the focus of families 
and genera, some of which are* found nowhere else, and some 
are common to others, but, with a very few remarkable excep- 
tions, the species of plants in each are entirely different or repre- 
sentative.^^ This does not depend upon the difference in latitude, 

^^ M. de CandoUe established 20 botanical regions, and Professor Scho w 
the same number ; but Professor Martius, of Munich, has divided the 
vegetation of the globe into 51 provinces, namely, 5 in Europe, 11 in 
Africa, 13 in Asia, 3 in New Holland, 4 in North and 8 in South America, 
besides Central America, the Antillas, the Antarctic Lands,New Zealand, 
Van Diemen's Land, New Guinea, and Polynesia. To these, other divi- 
sions might be added, as the Galapagos, which is so strongly defined. 

Baron Humboldt gives the following concise view of the distribution 
of plants, both as to height and latitude : — 

The equatorial zone is the region of palms and bananas. 

The tropical zone is the region of tree-ferns and figs. 

The subtropical zone, that of myrtles and laurels. 

The warm temperate zone, that of evergreen trees. 

The cold temperate zone, that of European or deciduous trees. 

The subarctic zone, that of pines. 

The arctic zone, that of rhododendrons. 

The polar zone, that of alpine plants. 

Upper Limit of Trees on Mountains. — The upper limit of trees is dis- 
tinguished by the Escalloniaj, on the Andes of Quito, at the height of 
11,500 feet above the level of the sea. 

In tropical Mexico, the upper limit of trees, at the height of 12,789 
feet, is distinguished by the Pinus occidentalis. 

In the temperate zone the limit of trees is marked by the Quercus 
Semicarpifolia, at 11,500 feet, on the south side of the Himalaya, and 
by the Betula Alba, on the north side, at the height of 14,000 feet: the 
same birch forms the limit on the Caucasus, at the elevation of 6394 
feet. On the Pyrenees and Alps the limit is marked by the Coniferae 
or pine tribe : on the Pyrenees by the Pinus uncinata, at the height 



BOTANICAL DISTRICTS. 309 

for the vegetation of the United States of North America is totally 
unlike that of Europe under the same isothermal lines, and even 
between the tropics the greatest dissimilarity often prevails under 
different degrees of longitude : consequently, the cause of this 
partial distribution of plants, and that of animals also, which is 
according to the same law, must be looked for in those early 
geological periods when the earth first began to be tenanted by 
the present races of organized beings. 

As the land rose at different periods above the ocean, each part, 
as it emerged from the waves, had probably been clothed with 
vegetation, and peopled with animals, suited to its position with 
regard to the equator, and to the climate and condition of the 
globe then being. And as the conditions and climate were dif- 
ferent at each succeeding geological epoch, so each portion of the 
land, as it rose, would be characterized by its own vegetation and 
animals, and thus at last there would be many centres of creation, 
as at this day, all differing more or less from one another, and 
hence, alpine floras must be of older date than those in the plains. 
The vegetation and faunas of those lands that differed most in 
age and place would be most dissimilar, while the plants and 
animals of such as were not far removed from one another in 
time and place would have correlative forms or family likenesses, 
yet each would form a distinct province. Thus, in opposite hemi- 
spheres, and everywhere at great distances, but under like cir- 
cumstances, the species are representatives of one another, rarely 
identical : when, however, the conditions which suit certain 
species are continuous, identical species are found throughout, 
either by original creation or by migration. The older forms 
may have been modified to a certain extent by the succeeding 
conditions of the globe, but they never could have been changed, 
since immutability of species is a primordial law of nature. 

of 10,870 feet : on the south side of the Alps by the larch, at the eleva- 
tion of 6700 feet; and by the Piims abies, at 5883 feet, on the north. 

In Lapland, the Betula Alba forms the upper limit of trees, at the 
height of only 1918 feet. 

The upper Limit of Shrubs. — In the Andes of Quito the Bejarias are 
the shrubs that attain the greatest herght, and terminate at 13,420 feet 
above the sea-level. 

The juniper, Salix, and Ribes, or currant tribe, form the upper limit 
of Shrubs on the south side of the Himalaya, at the height of 11,500 
feet. The tama, or Genista versicolor, a species of broom, flourishes 
at the height of 17 000 feet on the north side, and vegetation is pro- 
longed to nearly 18,000 feet. 

The Rhododendron forms the upper limit of shrubs on the Caucasus, 
at 8825 feet; in the Pyrenees it grows to 8312 feet; in the Alps to 7480 
feet: and in Lapland it forms the upper limit of shrubs at an elevation 
of 3000 above the Arctic Ocean. 



310 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

Neither external circumstances, time, nor human art, can change 
one species into another, though each to a certain extent is capa- 
ble of accommodating itself to a change of external circumstances, 
so as to produce varieties even transmissible to their offspring. 

The flora of Cashmere and the higher parts of the Himalaya 
mountains is similar to that of southern Europe', yet the species 
are representative, not identical. In the plains of Tartary, where 
from their elevation the degree of cold is not less than in the 
wastes of Siberia, the vegetation of one might be mistaken for 
that of the other ; the gooseberry, currant, willow, rhubarb, and 
in some places the oak, hazel, cypress, poplar, and birch, grow 
in both, but they are of different species. The flora near the 
snow-line on the lofty mountains of Europe, and lower down, has 
also a perfect family likeness to that in high northern latitudes. 
In like manner many plants on the higher parts of the Chilian 
Andes are similar, and even identical, with those in Tierra del 
Fuego ; nay, the Arctic flora has a certain resemblance to that of 
the Antarctic regions, and even occasional identity of species. 
These remarkable coincidences may be accounted for by the dif- 
ferent places having been at an early geological period at the 
same level above the ocean, and that they continue to retain part 
of their original flora after their relative positions have been 
changed. The tops of the Chilian Andes were probably on a 
level with Tierra del Fuego when both were covered with the 
same vegetation, and in the same manner the lofty plains of 
Tartary may have acquired their vegetation when they were on 
the level of southern Siberia. 

In the many vicissitudes the surface of the globe has under- 
gone, continents formed at one period were broken up at another 
into islands and detached masses by inroads of the sea and other 
causes. Now, Professor E. Forbes has shown that some of the 
primary floras and faunas have spread widely from their original 
centres over large portions of the continents before the land was 
broken up into the form it now has, and thus accounts for the 
similarity and sometimes identity of the plants and animals of 
regions now separated by seas, — as, for example, islands, which 
generally partake of the vegetation and fauna of the continents 
adjacent to them. Taking for granted the original creation of 
specific centres of plants and animals. Professor E. Forbes has 
clearly proved that " the specific identity, to any extent, of the 
flora and fauna of one area, with those of another, depends on 
both areas forming, or having formed, part of the same specific 
centre, or on their having derived their animal and vegetable 
population by transmission, through migration, over continuous 
or closely contiguous land, aided, in the case of alpine floras, by 
transportation on floating masses of ice." 



BOTANICAL DISTRICTS. 311 

By the preceding laws the limited provinces and dispersion of 
animal and vegetable life are explained, but the existence of 
single species in regions very far apart has not yet been ac- 
counted for. 

Very few of the exogenous or dicotyledonous plants are com- 
mon to two or more countries far apart : among the few, the 
Samolus Valerandi, a common English plant, is a native of Aus- 
tralia ; the Potentilla tridentata, not found in Britain, except on 
one hill in Angusshire, is common to Arctic Europe and the 
mountains of North America ; and in the Falkland Islands there 
are more than 30 flowering plants identical with those in Great 
Britain. 

There are many more instances of wide diffusion among the 
monocotyledonous plants, especially grasses : the Phleum alpinum 
of Switzerland grows without the smallest variation at the Straits 
of Magellan, and Mr. Bunbury met with the European quaking- 
grass in the interior of the country at the Cape of Good Hope ; 
but the cellular or cryptogamous class is most widely diffused — 
plants not susceptible of cultivation, of little use to man, and of 
all others the most difficult to transport. The Sticta aurata, 
found in Cornwall, is a native of the Cape of Good Hope, St. 
Helena, the West Indian islands, and Brazil ; the Trichomanes 
brevisetum, long supposed to be peculiar to the British isles, is 
ascertained to grow in Madeira, South America, &c. ; and our 
eminent botanist, Mr. Brown, found 88 British lichens and 28 
British mosses in New Holland, yet in no two parts of the world 
is the vegetation more dissimilar; and almost all the lichens 
brought from the southern hemisphere by Sir James Ross, 
amounting to 200 species, are also inhabitants of the northern 
hemisphere, and mostly European. 

In islands far from continents the number of plants is small, 
but of these, a large proportion occur nowhere else. In St. 
Helena, of 30 flower-bearing plants, 1 or 2 only are native else- 
where, but in 60 species of cryptogamous plants Dr. Hooker 
found only 12 pecuhar to the island. 

Some plants are more particularly confined to certain regions : 
the species of Cinchona which furnish the Peruvian bark grow 
along the eastern declivity of the Andes, as far as 18° S. lat. ; 
the cedar of Lebanon is indigenous on that celebrated mountain 
only; and the Disa grandiflora is limited to a very small spot on 
the top of the Table-mountain at the Cape of Good Hope ; but 
whether these are remnants whose kindred have perished by a 
change of physical circumstances, or centres only beginning to 
spread, it is impossible to say. 

Plants are dispersed by currents : of 600 plants from the 
vicinity of the river Zaire on the coast of Africa, 13 are found 



312 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

also on the shores of Guiana and Brazil, evidently carried by the 
great equatorial current to countries congenial in soil and climate. 
The seeds of the Mimosa scandens, the Guilandina Bonduc, and 
the cashew-nut, are wafted from the West India islands to the 
coasts of Scotland and Ireland by the Gulf-stream, a climate and 
soil which do not suit them, therefore they do not grow. Of all 
the great orders, the species of Leguminosse are most widely dis- 
persed on coasts, because their seeds are not injured by the water. 
Winds also waft seeds to great distances ; birds and quadrupeds, 
and above all man, are active agents in dispersing plants. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



Vegetation of the Great Continent— Of the Arctic Islands — And of the 
Arctic and North Temperate Regions of Europe and Asia. 

The southern limit of the polar flora, on the great continent, lies 
mostly within the Arctic Circle, but stretches along the tops of the 
Scandinavian mountains, and reappears in the high lands of Scot- 
land, Cumberland, and Ireland, on the summits of the Pyrenees, 
Alps, and other mountains in southern Europe, as well as on the 
table-land of eastern Asia, and on the high ridges of the Hima- 
laya. 

The great European plain to the Ural Mountains, as well as 
the low lands of England and Ireland, were at one period covered 
by a sea full of floating ice and icebergs, which made the climate 
much colder than it now is. At the beginning of that period the 
Scandinavian range, the other continental mountains, and those in 
Britain and Ireland, were islands of no great elevation, and were 
then clothed with the Arctic flora, or a representative of it, which 
they still retain now that they form the tops of the mountain- 
chains, and at that time both plants and animals were conveyed 
from one country to another by the floating ice. It is even pro- 
bable, from the relations of the fauna and flora, that Greenland, 
Iceland, and the very high European latitudes, are the residue of 
a great northern land which had sunk down at the close of the 
glacial period, for there were many vicissitudes of level during 
that epoch. At all events, it may be presumed that the elevation 
of the Arctic regions of both continents, if not contemporaneous, 
was probably not far removed in time. Similarity of circum- 
stances had extended throughout the whole Arctic regions, since 
there is a remarkable similarity and occasional identity of species 
of plants and animals in the high latitudes of both continents, 



ARCTIC FLORA. 313 

which is continued along the tops of their mountain-chains, even 
in the tennperate zones ; and there is reason to believe that the 
relations between the faunas and floras of Boreal America, Asia, 
and Europe, must have been established towards the close of the 
glacial period. 

The flora of Iceland approaches that of Britain, yet only one in 
four of the British plants are known in Iceland. 'I'here are 870 
species in Iceland, of which more than half are flower-bearing : 
this is a greater proportion than is found in Scotland, but there 
are only 32 of woody texture. This flora is scattered in groups 
according as the plants hke a dry, marshy, volcanic, or marine 
soil. Many grow close to the hot-springs : some not far from the 
edge of the basin of the Great Geyser, where every other plant is 
petrified ; and species of Confervas flourish in a spring said to be 
almost hot enough to boil an egg. The grains cannot be culti- 
vated on account of the severity of the climate, but the Icelanders 
make bread from metur, a species of wild corn, and also from the 
bulbous root of Polygonum viviparum; their greatest delicacy is 
the Angelica archangelica ; Iceland moss, used in medicine, is an 
article of commerce. There are 583 species in the Feroe islands, 
of which 270 are flowering plants : many thrive there that can- 
not bear the cold of Iceland. 



ARCTIC FLORA OF THE GREAT CONTINENTS. 

In the most northern parts of the Arctic lands the year is 
divided into one long intensely cold night and one bright and fer- 
vid day, which quickly brings to maturity the scanty vegetation. 
Within the limit of perpetual congelation the Palmella nivalis (or 
red snow of Arctic voyagers), a very minute red or orange- 
coloured plant, finds nourishment in the snow itself, the first dawn 
of vegetable life ; it is also found colouring large patches of snow 
in the Alps and Pyrenees. 

Lichens are the first vegetables that appear at the limits of 
the snow-line, whether in high latitudes or mountain-tops, and 
they are the first vegetation that takes possession of volcanic 
lavas and new islands, where they prepare soil for plants of a 
higher order : they grow on rocks, stones, and trees, in fact on 
anything that aflxDrds them moisture. More than 2400 species 
are already known ; no plants are more widely difliised, and 
none afford a more striking instance of the arbitrary location of 
species, as they are of so little direct use to man that they could 
not have been disseminated by his agency. The same kind pre- 
vail throughout the Arctic regions, and the species common to 
both hemispheres are very numerous. Some lichens produce bril- 
27 



314 PHYSICAL GEOGKAPHY. 

liant red, orange, and brown dyes ; and the tripe de roche, a spe- 
cies of Gyrophora, is a miserable substitute for food, as our 
intrepid countryman Sir John Frankhn and his brave companions 
experienced in their perilous Arctic journey. 

Mosses follow lichens on newly-formed soil, and they are found 
everywhere throughout the world in damp situations, but in great- 
est abundance in temperate climates : 800 species are known, of 
which a great part inhabit the Arctic regions, constituting a large 
portion of the vegetation. 

In Asiatic Siberia, north of the 60th parallel of latitude, the 
ground is perpetually frozen at a very small depth below the sur- 
face : a temperature of 70° below zero of Fahrenheit is not un- 
common, and, in some instances, the cold has been 120° below 
zero. Then it is fatal to animal life, especially if accompanied by 
wind. In some places trees grow and corn ripens even at 70° of 
north latitude ; but in the most northern parts boundless swamps, 
^varied by lakes both of salt and fresh water, cover wide portions 
of this desolate country, which is buried under snow nine or ten 
months in the year. As soon as the snow is melted by the return- 
ing sun, these extensive morasses are covered with coarse grass 
and rushes, while mosses and lichens mixed with dwarf Avillows 
clothe the plains ; sahne plants abound, and whole districts pro- 
duce Diotis ceratoides. 

In Nova Zembla and other places in the far north, the vegetation 
is so stunted that it barely covers the ground, but a much greater 
variety of minute plants of considerable beauty are crowded together 
there in a small space than in the alpine regions of Europe where 
the same genera grow. This arises from the weakness of the 
vegetation ; for in the Swiss Alps the same plant frequently 
occupies a large space, excluding every other, as the dark-blue 
gentian, the violet-coloured pansy, the pink and yellow stone-crops. 
In the remote north, on the contrary, where vitality is compara- 
tively feeble and the seeds do -not ripen, thirty different species 
may be seen crowded together in a brilliant mass, no one having 
strength to overcome the rest. In such frozen climates plants 
may be said to live between the air and the earth, for they scarcely 
rise above the soil, and their roots creep along the surface, not 
having power to enter it. All the woody plants, as the Betula 
nana, the reticulated willow, Andromeda tetragona, with a few 
berry-bearing shrubs, trail along the ground, never rising more 
than an inch or two above it. The Salix lanata, the giant of these 
boreal forests, never grows more than five inches above the surface, 
while its stem, 10 or 12 feet long, lies hidden among the moss, 
owing shelter to its lowly neighbour. 

The chief characteristic of the vegetation of the Arctic regions 
is the predominance of perennial and cryptogamous plants, and 



ARCTIC FLORA. 315 

also of the sameness of its nature ; but more to the south, where 
night begins to alternate with day, a difference of species appears 
in longitude as well as in latitude. A beautiful flora of vivid 
colours adorns these latitudes both in Europe and Asia during 
their brief but bright and ardent summer, consisting of potentillas, 
gentians, chickweeds, saxifrages, sedums. Ranunculi, spiraeas, 
drabas, artemisias, claytonias, and many more. Such is the power 
of the sun, and the consequent rapidity of vegetation, that these 
plants spring up, blossom, ripen their seed, and die, in six weeks : 
in a lower latitude woody plants follow these, as berry-bearing 
shrubs, the glaucous Kalmia, the trailing Azalea and rhododen- 
drons. The Siberian flora differs from that in the same European 
latitudes by the North Amerian genera Phlox, Mitella, Claytonia, 
and the predominance of asters, Solidago, Spiraea, milk-vetches, 
wormwood, and the saline plants goosefoot and saltworts. 

Social plants abound in many parts of the northern countries, 
as grass, heath, furze, and broom : the steppes are an example of 
this on a very extensive scale. Both in Europe and Asia they 
are subject to a rigorous winter, with deep snow and chilling 
blasts of wind ; and as the soil generally consists of a coating of 
vegetable mould over clay, no plants with deep roots thrive upon 
them ; hence, the steppes are destitute of trees, and even bushes 
are rare except in ravines : the grass is thin, but nourishing. 
Hyacinths and some other bulbs, mignonette, asparagus, liquorice, 
and wormwood, grow in the European steppes ; the two last are 
peculiarly characteristic. The NeJumbium speciosum grows in 
one spot five miles from the town of Astracan, and nowhere else 
in the wide domains of Russia : the leaves of this beautiful aqua- 
tic plant are often two feet broad, and its rose-coloured blossoms 
are very fragrant. It is also native in India and Tibet, where it 
is held sacred, as it was formerly in Egypt, where it is said to be 
extinct : it is one of the many instances of a plant growing in 
countries far apart. 

Each steppe in Siberia has its own peculiar plants ; the Peplis 
and Camphorosma are peculiar to the steppe of the Irtish, and the 
Amaryllis tatarica abounds in the meadows of eastern Siberia, 
where the vegetation bears a great analogy to that of north-west- 
ern America: several genera and species are common to both. 

Half the plants found by Wormskiold in Kamtchatka are Euro- 
pean, with the exception of eight or ten, which are Amercian. 
Few European trees grow in Asiatic Siberia, notwithstanding the 
similarity of climate, and most of them disappear towards the 
rivers Tobol and Irtish. 

In Lapland and in the high latitudes of Russia, large tracts are 
covered with birch-trees, but the pine and fir tribe are the prin- 
cipal inhabitants of the north. Prodigious forests of these are 



316 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

spread over the mountains of Norway and Sweden, and in Euro- 
pean Russia 200,000,000 acres are clothed with these Coniferse 
alone, or occasionally mixed with willows, poplars, and alders. 
Although soils of pure sand and lime are absolutely barren, yet 
they generally contain enough of alkali to supply the wants of 
the fir and pine tribes, which require ten times less than oaks and 
other deciduous trees. 

The Siberian steppes are bounded on the south by great forests 
of pine, birch, and willow : poplars, elms, and Tartarian maple 
overhang the upper courses of the noble rivers which flow from 
the mountains to the Frozen Ocean, and on the banks of the 
Yenessei the Pinus Cembra, or Siberian pine, with edible fruit, 
grows 120 feet high. The Altai are covered nearly to their sum- 
mit with similar forests, but on their greatest heights the stunted 
larch craw^ls on the ground, and the flora is like that of northern 
Siberia : round the lake Baikal the Pinus Cembra grows nearly 
to the snow-line. 

Forests of black birch are peculiar to Dahuria, where there are 
also apricot and apple trees, and rhododendrons, of which a spe- 
cies grows in thickets on the hills^, with yellow blossoms. Here, 
and everywhere else throughout this country, are found all the 
species of Caragana, a genus entirely Siberian. Each terrace of 
the mountains, and each steppe on the plains, has its peculiar 
plants, as well as some common to all : perennial plants are more 
numerous than annuals. 

If temperature and climate depended upon latitude alone, all 
Asia between the 50th and 30th parallels would have a mild cli- 
mate ; but that is far from being the case, on account of the struc- 
ture of the continent, which consists of the highest table-lands and 
the lowest plains on the globe. 

The table-land of Tibet, where it is not cultivated, has the cha- 
racter of great sterility, and the climate is as unpropitious as the 
soil : frost, snow, and sleet begin early in September, and con- 
tinue with little interruption till May ; snow, indeed, falls every 
month in the year. The air is always dry, because in winter 
moisture falls in the form of snow, and in summer it is quickly 
evaporated hy the intense heat of the sun. The themometer 
sometimes rises to 144° of Fahrenheit in the sun, and even in- 
winter his direct rays have great power for an hour or two, so 
that a variation of 100° in the temperature of the air has occurred 
in twelve hours. Notwithstanding these disadvantages, there are 
sheltered spots which produce most of the European grain and 
fruits, though the natural vegetation bears the Siberian charac- 
ter, but the species are quite distinct. The most common indi- 
genous plants are Tartarian furze and various prickly shrubs 
resembling it, gooseberries, currants, hyssop, dog-rose, dwarf sow- 



EUROPEAN FLORA. 317 

thistle, Equiselum, rhubarb, Jucern, and asafoetida, on which the 
flocks feed. Prangos, an umbeJiiferous plant, with broad leaves 
and scented blossom, is peculiar to Ladak and other parts of Tibet. 
Mr. Moorcroft says it is so nutritious, that sheep fed on it become 
fat in twenty days. There are three species of wheat, three of 
barley, and two of buckwheat, natives of the lofty table-land, 
where the sarsinh is the only fruit known to be indigenous. 
Owing to the rudeness of the climate trees are not numerous, yet 
on the lower declivities of some mountains there are aspens, birch, 
yew, ash. Tartaric oak, various pines, and the Pavia, a species of 
horse-chestnut. Much of the table-Jand of Tartary is occupied by 
the Great Gobi and other deserts of sand, with grassy steppes 
near the mountains ; but of the flora of these regions we know 
nothing. 



FLORA OF BRITAIN AND OF MIDDLE AND SOUTH- 
ERN EUROPE. 

The British islands afTord an excellent illustration of distinct 
provinces of animals and plants, and also of their migration from 
other centres. Professor E. Forbes has determined five botani- 
cal districts, four of which are restricted to limited provinces, 
whilst the fifth, which comprehends the great mass of British 
plants, is, everywhere, either alone or mixed with the others. 
All of these, with a very few doubtful exceptions, have migrated 
before the British islands were separated from the continent. 
The first, which is of great antiquity, includes the flora of the 
mountain districts of the west and south-west of Ireland, and is 
similar to that in the south of Spain, but the more delicate plants 
had been killed by the change of climate after the separation of 
Ireland from the Asturias. The flora in the south of England 
and the south-east of Ireland is different from that in all other 
parts of the British islands ; it is intimately related to the vegeta- 
tion of the Channel Islands and the coast of France opposite to 
them, yet there are many plants in the Channel Islands which 
are not indigenous in Britain. In the south-west of England, 
where the chalk-plants prevail, the flora is like that on the adja- 
cent coast of France. 

The tops of the Scottish mountains are the focus of a separate 
flora, which is the same with that in the Scandinavian Alps, and 
is very numerous. Scotland, Wales, and a part of Ireland received 
this flora when they were groups of islands in the Glacial Sea. 
The rare Eriocaulon is found in the Hebrides, in Connemara, 
and in Northern America, and nowhere else. Some few indivi- 
duals of this flora grow on the summits of the mountains in Cum- 
27* 



318 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

berland and Wales. The fifth, of more recent origin than the 
alpine flora, including all the ordinary flowering plants, as the 
common daisy and primrose, hairy ladies' smock, upright meadow 
crowfoot, and the lesser celandine, together with our common 
trees and shrubs, has migrated from Germany before England 
was separated from the continent of Europe by the British Chan- 
nel. It can be distinctly traced in its progress across the island, 
but the migration was not completed till after Ireland was sepa- 
rated from England by the Irish Channel, and that is the reason 
why many of the ordinary English plants, animals, and reptiles, 
are not found in the sister island, for the migration of animals 
was simultaneous with that of plants, and took place between the 
last of the tertiary periods and the historical epoch, that of man's 
creation : it was extended also over a great part of the continent.^ 
Deciduous trees are the chief characteristic of the temperate 
zone of the old continent, more especially of middle Europe ; 
these thrive best in soil produced by the decay of the primary 
and ancient volcanic rocks, which furnish abundance of alkali. 
Oaks, elms, beech, ash, larch, maple, lime, alder, and sycamore, 
all of which lose their leaves in winter, are the prevailing vege- 
tation, occasionally mixed with fir and pine. 

The undergrowth consists of wild apple, cherry, yew, holly, 
hawthorn, broom, furze, wild rose, honeysuckle, clematis, &c. 
The most numerous and characteristic herbaceous plants are the 
umbelliferous class, as carrot and anise, the campanulas, the 
Cichoracese, a family to which lettuce, endive, dandelion, and sow- 
thistle belong. The cruciform tribe, as wallflower, stock, turnip, 
cabbage, cress, &c., are so numerous, that they form a distin- 
guishing feature in the botany of middle Europe, to which 45 
species of them belong. This family is almost confined to the 
northern hemisphere, for, of 800 known species, only 100 belong 
to the southern, the soil of which must contain less sulphur, which 
is indispensable for these plants. 

In the Pyrenees, Alps, and other high lands in Europe, the 
gradation of botanical forms, from the summit to the foot of the 
mountains, is similar to that which takes place from the Arctic to 
the middle latitudes of Europe. The analogy, however, is true 
only when viewed generally, for many local circumstances of 
chmate and vegetation interpose ; and ahhough the similarity of 
botanical forms is very great between certain zones of altitude and 
parallels of latitude, the species are, for the most part, different. 

Evergreen trees and shrubs become more frequent in the 
southern countries of Europe, where about a fourth part of the 
ligneous vegetation never entirely lose their leaves. The flora 

^ The British flora contains at least 3000 species. 



FLORA OF TEMPERATE ASIA. 319 

consists chiefly of ilex, oak, cypress, hornbeam, sweet chestnut, 
laurel, laurustinus, the apple tribe, manna or the flowering ash, 
carob, jujube, juniper, terebinths, lentiscus and pistaccio which 
yield resin and mastic, arbutus, myrtle, jessamine (yellow and 
white), and various pines, as the Pinus maritima, and Pinus 
Pinea, or stone pine, which forms so picturesque a feature in the 
landscape of southern Europe. The most prevalent herbaceous 
plants are Caryophylleae, as pinks, Stellaria, and arenarias, and 
also the labiate tripe, mint, thyme, rosemary, lavender, with many 
others, all remarkable for their aromatic properties, and their love 
of dry situations. Many of the choicest plants and flowers which 
adorn the gardens and grounds in northern Europe are indigenous 
in these warmer countries : the anemone, tulip, mignonette, nar- 
cissus, gladiolus, iris, asphodel, amaryllis, carnation, &c. In 
Spain, Portugal, Sicily, and the other European shores of the 
Mediterranean, tropical families begin to appear in the arums, 
plants yielding balsams, oleander, date and palmetto palms, and 
grasses of the group of Panicum or millet, Cyperacese or sedges, 
Aloe and Cactus. In this zone of transition there are six herba- 
ceous for one woody plant. 



FLORA OF TEMPERATE ASIA. 

The vegetation of western Asia approaches nearly to that of 
India at one extremity, and Europe at the other ; of 281 genera 
of plants which grow in Asia Minor and Persia, 109 are Euro- 
pean. Syria and Asia Minor form a region of transition, like the 
other countries on the Mediterranean, where the plants of the 
temperate and tropical zones are united. We owe many of our 
best fruits and sweetest flowers to these regions. The cherry, 
almond, oleander, syringa, locust-tree, (fee, come from Asia 
Minor ; the walnut, peach, melon, cucumber, hyacinth, ranun- 
culus, come from Persia ; the date-palm, fig, olive, mulberry, and 
damask rose, come from Syria ; the vine and apricot are Arme- 
nian, the latter grows also everywhere in middle and northern 
Asia. The tropical forms met with in more sheltered places are 
the sugar-cane, date and palmetto palms, mimosas, acacias, As- 
clepias gigantea, and arborescent Apocineae. On the mountains 
south of the Black Sea, American types appear in rhododendrons 
and the Azalea pontica, and herbaceous plants are numerous and 
brilliant in these countries. 

The table-land of Persia, though not so high as that of eastern 
Asia, resembles it in the quality of the soil, which is chiefly 
clayey, sandy, or saline, and the climate is very dry ; hence, 
vegetation is poor, and consists of thorny bushes, acacias, mimosasj 



320 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

tamarisk, jujube, and asafoetida. Forests of oak cover the Lusi- 
stan mountains, but the date-palm is the only produce of the 
parched shores of the Arabian Gulf and of the oases on the Per- 
sian table-land. In the valleys, which are beautiful, there are 
clumps of Oriental plane and other trees, hawthorn, tree-roses, 
and many of the odoriferous shrubs of Arabia Felix. 

Afghanistan produces the seedless pomegranate, acacias, date- 
palms, tamarisks, &c. The vegetation has much the same general 
character as that of Egypt. The valleys of the Hindoo Coosh 
are covered with clover, thyme, violets, and many odoriferous 
plants: the greater part of the trees in the -mountains are of 
European genera, though all the species of plants, both woody 
and herbaceous, are peculiar. The small leguminous plant, from 
whose leaves and twigs the true indigo dye is extracted, grows 
spontaneously on the lower offsets of the Hindoo Coosh. This 
dye has been in use in India from the earliest times, but the plant 
which produces it was not known in England till towards the end 
of the 16th century. Since that time it has been cultivated in 
the West Indies and tropical America, though in that country 
there is a species indigenous. 

Hot arid deserts bound India on the west, where the stunted 
and scorched vegetation consists of tamarisks, thorny acacia, de- 
formed Euphorbise, and almost leafless thorny trees, shaggy with 
long hair, by which they imbibe moisture and carbon from the 
atmosphere. Indian forms appear near Delhi, in the genera Fla- 
courtia and others, mixed with Syrian plants. East of this tran- 
sition the vegetation becomes entirely Indian, except on the higher 
parts of the mountains, where European types prevail. 

The Himalaya mountains form a distinct botanical district. 
Immediately below the snow-line the flora is almost the same 
with that on the high plains of Tartary, to which may be added 
rhododendrons and andromedas, and among the herbaceous plants 
primroses appear. Lower down, vast tracts are covered with 
prostrate bamboos, and European forms become universal, though 
the species are Indian, as gentians, plantagos, campanulas, and 
gale. There are extensive forests of Coniferse, consisting chiefly 
of Pinus excelsa, Deodora, and Morinda, with many deciduous 
forest and fruit trees of European genera. A transition from this 
flora to a tropical vegetation takes place between the altitudes of 
9000 and 5000 feet, because the rains of the monsoons begin to 
be felt in this region, which unites the plants of both. Here the 
scarlet and other rhododendrons grovvr luxuriantly; walnuts, and 
at least 25 species of oak, attain a great size, one of which, the 
Gluercus semi-carpifolia, has a clean trunk from 80 to lOJ feet 
hisfh. Geraniums and labiate plants are mixed in sheltered spots 
with the tropical genera of Scitamineae, or the ginger tribe ; 



FLORA OF TEMPERATE ASIA. 321 

bignonias and balsams, and camellias, grow on the lower part of 
this region. 

It is remarkable that Indian, European, American, and Chinese 
forms are united in this zone of transition, though the distinctness 
of species still obtains : the Triosteum, a genus of the honeysuckle 
tribe, is American ; the Abelia, another genus of the same, to- 
gether with the CamelHa and Tricyrtis, are peculiarly Chinese ; 
the daisy and wild thyme are European. A few of the trees and 
plants mentioned descend below the altitude of 5000 feet, but 
they soon disappear on the hot declivities of the mountain, where 
the Erythrina monosperma and Bombax heptaphyllum are the 
most common trees, together with the Millingtonioe, a tribe of 
large timber-trees, met with everywhere between the Himalaya 
and 10° N. lat. The Shorea robusta, Dalbergia, and Cedrela, a 
genus allied to mahogany, are the most common trees in the 
forests of the lower regions of these mountains. 

The temperate regions of eastern Asia, including Chinese Tar- 
tary, China, and Japan, have a vegetation totally different from 
that of any other part of the globe similarly situated, and show 
in a strong point of view the distinct character which vegetation 
assumes in different longitudes. In Mandshuria and the vast 
mountain-chains that slope from the eastern extremity of the 
high Tartarian table-land to the fertile plains in China, the forests 
and flora are generally of European genera, but Asiatic species ; 
in these countries the buckthorn and honeysuckle tribes are so 
numerous as to give a peculiar character to the vegetation. 
Mixed with these and with roses are thickets of azaleas covered 
with blossoms of dazzling brightness and beauty. 

The transition zone in this country lies between the 35th and 
27th parallels of north latitude, in which the tropical flora is 
mixed with that of the northern provinces. The prevailing 
plants on the Chinese low grounds are Glycine, Hydrangea, the 
camphor laurel, Stillingia sebifera, or wax-tree, Clerodendron, 
Hibiscus Rosa-sinensis, Thuia orientalis, Olea fragrans, the sweet 
blossoms of which are mixed with the finer teas to give them 
flavour ; Melia azedarach, or Indian pride, the paper mulberry, 
and others of the genus, and Camellia sasanqua, which covers 
hills in the province of Kiong-si. The tea-plant, and other spe- 
cies of CameUia, grow in many parts ; the finest tea is the pro- 
duce of a low range of hills from between the 33d and 25th 
parallels, an offset from the great chain of Peling. Thea viridis 
and bohea are possibly only varieties of the same plant ; the 
green tea is strong and hardy, the black a small delicate plant. 
The quality of the tea depends upon the stage of growth at which 
it is gathered ; early leaves make the best tea, those picked late 
in the season give a very coarse tea. Bohea grows in the pro- 



322 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

vince of Fu-kian, hyson in Song-lo. Pekoe or pak-ho, which 
means white down in Chinese, consists of the first downy sprouts 
or leaf-buds of three-years-old plants. A very costly tea of this 
kind, never brought to Europe, and known as the tea of the 
Wells of the Dragon, is used only by persons of the highest rank 
in China. The true Imperial tea, also, called Flos these, which 
is not, as was supposed, the flower-buds, but merely a very supe- 
rior quality of tea, seldom reaches Europe ; that sold under this 
name is really Chusan tea flavoured with blossoms of Olea 
fragrans.^^ The Chinese keep tea a year before they use it, 
because fresh tea has an intoxicating quahty which produces dis- 
turbance of the nervous system hke the effect of Erythroxylon 
Coca on the Peruvians. It is a remarkable circumstance that 
tea and coffee, belonging to different families, natives of different 
quarters of the globe, should possess the same principle, and it is 
not less remarkable that their application to the same use should 
have been so early discovered by man. 

The tea-plant grows naturally in Japan and upper Assam; it 
is hardy, and possesses great power of adaptation to climate. It 
has lately been cultivated in Brazil, in Provence, and in Algiers, 
hut at an expense which renders it unprofitable. Tea comes to 
Europe almost exclusively from China, but the plant thrives so 
well in the north-western provinces of India that the English will 
ultimately compete with the Chinese in producing it, especially 
for the consumption of Tibet. Tea was first brought to Europe 
by the Dutch in 1610 ; a small quantity came to England in 1666, 
and now the annual consumption of tea in Great Britain is about 
fifty millions of pounds.^^ 

The climate of Japan is milder than its latitude would indicate, 
owing to the influence of the surrounding ocean. European 
forms prevail in the high lands, as they do generally throughout 
the mountains of Asia and the Indian Archipelago, with the dif- 
ference of species, as Abies, Cembra, Strobus, and Larix. The 
Japanese flora is similar to the Chinese, and there are 30 Ameri- 
can plants, besides others of Indian and tropical climates. These 
islands, nevertheless, have their own peculiar flora, distinct in its 
nature ; as the Sophora, Kerria, Aucuba, Mespilus, and Pyrus 
Japonica, Rhus vernix, Illicium anisatum, or the anise-tree, 
Daphne odorata, the soap-tree, various species of the Calycanthus 

^5 The plants with which the Chinese give flavour to tea are the Olea 
fragrans, Chloranthus inconspicuus, Gardenia florida, Aglaia odorata, 
Mogorium. sambac, Vitex spicata, Camellia sasanqua, Camellia odor- 
ifera, Illicium anisatum, Magnolia yulan, Rosa indica odoratissima, 
tumeric, oil of Bixa orellana, and the root of the Florentine iris. 

The principles of caffeine and theine are. in all respects^ identical. 

^ Davis on China. 



INDO-CHINESE FLORA. 323 

tribe, the custard-apple, the Khair mimosa, which yields the 
catechu, the litchi, the sweet orange, the Cycas revoluta, a plant 
resembling a dwarf palm, with various other fruits. Many tropi- 
cal plants mingle with the vegetation of the cocoanut and fan 
palms. 

Thus, the vegetation in Japan and China is widely different 
from that in the countries bordering the Mediterranean, though 
between the same parallels of latitude. In the tropical regions 
of Asia, where heat and moisture are excessive, the influence of 
latitude vanishes altogether, and the peculiarities of the vegetation 
in different longitudes become more evident. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

Flora of Tropical Asia — Of the Indian Archipelago, India, and Arabia. 

Tropical Asia is divided by nature into three distinct botanical 
regions : the Malayan peninsula, with the Indian Archipelago ; 
India, south of the Himalaya, with the island of Ceylon; and the 
Arabian peninsula. The two first have strong points of resem- 
blance, though their floras are peculiar. 



FLORA OF THE INDO-CHINESE PENINSULA AND 
THE INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. 

Many of the vegetable productions of the peninsula ^Deyond the 
Ganges are the same with those of India, mixed with the plants 
of the Indian Archipelago, so that this country is a region of 
transition, though it has a splendid vegetation of innumerable 
native productions, dyes of the most vivid hues, spices, medicinal 
plants, and many with the sweetest perfume. The soil in many 
places yields three crops in the year; the fruits of India, and most 
of those of China, come to perfection in the low lands. The 
arang forms an exception to the extreme beauty of the multitude 
of palms which adorn the Malayan peninsula ; though it is emi- 
nently characteristic of that country, it is an ugly plant, covered 
with black fibres like horsehair, sufficiently strong to make cord- 
age. It is cultivated for the sugar and wine made from its juice. 
Teak is plentiful ; almost all that is used in Bengal comes from 
the Birman empire, though it is less durable than that of the 
Malabar coast. The Hopea odorata is so large that a canoe is 
made of a single trunk ; the Gordonia integrifolia is held in such 
veneration that every Birman house has a beam of it. 



324 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

There are seven species of native oak in the forests ; the Mimosa 
catechu, which furnishes the terra japonica used in medicine ; 
the trees which produce varnish and stick-lac; the Glyphyria 
nitida, a myrtle, the leaves of which are used as tea in Bencoolen, 
called by the natives the tree of long life. The coasts are wooded 
by the Heritiera robusta, a large tree which thrives within reach 
of the tide ; bamboos with stems a foot and a half in diameter 
grow in dense thickets in the low lands. The Palmyra palm and 
the Borassus flabelliformis grow in extensive groves in the valley 
of the Irawaddy : it is a magnificent tree, often 100 feet high, re- 
markable for its gigantic leaves, one of which would shelter 12 
men. 

The anomalous trees the Zamias and Cycadeas, somewhat like 
a palm with large pinnated leaves, but of a different family, are 
found here and in tropical India ; those in America are of a dif- 
ferent species. Orchidess and tree-ferns are innumerable in the 
woody districts of the peninsula. 

The vegetation of the Indian Archipelago is gorgeous beyond 
description ; although in many instances it bears a strong analogy 
to that of the Malayan peninsula, tropical India, and Ceylon, still 
it is in an eminent degree peculiar. The height of the mountains 
causes variety in the temperature sufficient to admit of the growth 
of dammar pines, oaks, rhododendrons, magnolias, valerians, 
honeysuckles, bilberries, gentians, oleasters, and other European 
orders of woody and herbaceous plants; yet there is not one 
species in common. 

Palm-trees are more abundant in these islands than in any other 
part of the world, especially in the Sunda group, the origin of 
many, a few of which are now widely spread over the eastern 
countries. Three species of Areca, attaining a height of from 40 
to 50 and more feet, are cultivated in all the hot parts of India ; 
and Caryota Urens, the fruit of which is acrid, yet it yields wine 
and sugar, are all native. The attempt is vain to specify the 
multitudes of these graceful trees which form so characteristic a 
feature in the vegetation of these tropical islands, where a rich 
moist soil with intense heat brings them to such perfection. It 
has been observed that monocotyledonous plants are generally 
more plentiful in islands than on continents, and also that they 
extend farther into the southern than into the northern hemi- 
sphere, which may be accounted for by the moist and mild cHmate 
of the former. 

Jungle and dense pestilential woods entirely cover the smaller 
islands and the plains of the larger; the coasts are lined with 
thickets of mangroves, a matted vegetation of forest-trees, bam- 
boos, and coarse grass, entwined with chmbing and creeping 
plants, and overgrown by orchideous parasites in myriads ; and 



FLORA OF INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. 325 

the gutta-percha is also a native of these alluvial tracts. The 
forest-trees of the Indian Archipelago are almost unknown ; teak 
and many of the continental trees grow there, but the greater 
number are peculiarly their own. The naturalist Rumphius had 
a cabinet inlaid with 400 kinds of wood, the produce of Amboyna 
and the Molucca islands. 

Sumatra, Java, and the adjacent islands, are the region of the 
Dryobalanops camphora, in the stems of which sohd lumps of a 
remarkable and costly kind of camphor are found. All the trees 
of that order, and of several others, are peculiar to these islands, 
and 78 species of trees and shrubs of the Melastomaceous tribe 
grow there and in continental India. There are thickets of the 
sword-leaved vaquois-tree and of the Pandanus or screw-pine, a 
plant resembling the anana, with a blossom like that of a bulrush, 
very odoriferous, and in some species edible. 

This is the region of spices, which are very limited in their 
distribution : the Myristica moschata (the nutmeg and mace-plant) 
is confined to the Banda Islands, but it is said to have been dis- 
covered lately in New Guinea. The Amboyna and the Molucca 
groups are the focus of the Caryophyllus aromaticus, a myrtle, 
the buds of which are known as cloves. Various species of cin- 
namon and cassia, both of the laurel tribe, together with varieties 
of pepper, different from those in India and Ceylon, grow in this 
archipelago. All the pepper-plants require great heat : they are 
rare in Africa, but plentiful in America and the Indian Archi- 
pelago; the common black pepper is peculiar to the hottest parts 
of Asia, extending only a few degrees on each side of the equator. 
In 1842 more than 30,000,000 pounds weight of pepper were 
produced in Sumatra alone. Some of the most excellent fruits 
are indigenous here only, as the dourio, the ayer ayer, Loquat, 
the choapa of Molucca, peculiar kinds of orange, lemon, and 
citron, with others known only byname elsewhere. ^ Those com- 
mon to the continent of India are the jambrose, rose-apple, jack, 
various species of bread-fruit, mango, mangosteen, and the banana, 
which is luxuriant. 

Here the nettle tribe assume the most pernicious character, and 
the upas-tree of Java, one of the most deadly vegetable poisons; 
and even the plants resembling our common nettle are so acrid 
that the sting of one in Java occasions not only pain but illness, 
which lasts for days. A nettle in the island of Timor, called by 
the natives the " Devil's leaf," is so poisonous that it produces 
long illness and even death. The chelik, a shrub growing in the 
dense forests, produces a poison even more deadly than the upas. 
Some of the fig genus, which belongs also to the natural order of 
nettles, have acrid juices. Trees of the cashew tribe have a 
milky sap : the fine japan lacquer is made from the juice of the 
28 



326 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

Stagmaria verniciflua. Barringtonia and palms are very splendid 
here, the latter generally of peculiar species and limited in their 
distribution, as the Nipa. No country is richer in club-mosses 
and orchideous plants, which overrun the trees in thousands in 
the deep dark mountain-forests, choked by huge creeping plants, 
an undergrowth of gigantic grasses, through which not a ray of 
light penetrates. 

Sir Stamford Raffles describes the vegetation of Java as " fear- 
ful." In these forests the air is heavy, charged with dank and 
deadly vapours, never agitated by a breath of wind ; the soil, of 
the deepest black vegetable mould, always moist and clammy, 
stimulated by the fervid heat of a tropical sun, produces trees 
whose stems are of a spongy texture from their rapid growth, 
loaded with parasites, particularly the orchideous tribe, of which 
no less than 300 species are pecuhar to that island. Tree-ferns 
are in the proportion of one to twenty of the other plants, and 
form a large portion of the vegetation of Java and all these islands ; 
and there are above 200 tropical species of club-mosses growing 
to the length of 3 feet, whereas in cold countries they creep on 
the ground. 

The Rafflesias, of which there are four species, are the most 
singular productions of this archipelago. The most extraordinary 
one is common to Java and Sumatra, where it was discovered by 
Dr. Arnold, and therefore is called Rafflesia Arnoldi. It is a 
parasitical plant, with buds the size of an ordinary cabbage, and 
the flower, which smells of carrion, is of a brick-red colour, S^ feet 
in diameter; that found by Mr. Arnold weighed 15 pounds, and 
the cup in its centre could contain 12 pints of liquid. 

According to Sir Stamford Raffles there are six distinct climates 
in Java, from the top of the mountains to the sea, each having an 
extensive indigenous vegetation. No other country can show an 
equal abundance and variety of native fruit and esculent vege- 
tables. There are 100 varieties of rice, and of fragrant flowers, 
shrubs, and ornamental trees the number is infinite. Abundant 
as the Orchidese are in Java, Ceylon, and the Birmese empire, 
these countries possess very few that are common to them all, so 
local is their distribution. Ferns are more plentiful in this archi- 
pelago than elsewhere : tree-ferns are found chiefly between or 
near the tropics, in airless damp places. 



INDIAN FLORA. 

The plains of Hindostan are so completely sheltered from the 
Siberian blasts by the high table-lands of Tartary and the Himalaya 
mountains, that the vegetation at the foot of that range already 



INDIAN FLORA. 327 

assumes a tropical character. In the jungles and lower ridges of 
the fertile valley of Nepal, and on the dark and airless recesses of 
the Silhet forests, arborescent ferns and orchideous plants are found 
in profusion, scarcely surpassed even in the islands of the Indian 
Archipelago — indeed the marshy Tariyane is full of them. The 
lowest ranges of the Himalaya, the pestilential swamp of the Tari- 
yane, the alluvial ridges of the hills that bound it on the south, 
and many parts of the plains of the Ganges, are covered with 
primeval forests, which produce whole orders of large timber-trees, 
frequently overrun with parasitical loranths. 

The native fruits of India are many ; the orange tribe is almost all 
of Indian origin, though some of the species are now widely spread 
over the warmer parts of the other continents and the more dis- 
tant countries of Asia. Two or three species are peculiar to Mada- 
gascar ; one is found in the forests of the Essequibo, and another 
in Brazil, which are the only exceptions known. The Limonia lau- 
reola grows on the tops of the high Asiatic mountains, which are 
covered with snow several months in the year ; and the wampee, 
a fruit much esteemed in China and the Indian Archipelago, is 
produced by a species of this order. The vine grows wild in the 
forests ; plantain, banana, jambrose, guava, mango, mangosteen, 
date, areca, palmyra, cocoa-nut, and gameto-palms are all Indian, 
also the gourd family. The Scitaminea3, or ginger tribe, are so 
numerous, that they form a distinguishing and beautiful feature of 
Indian botany: they produce ginger, cardamoms, and turmeric. 
The flowers peculiar to India are brilliant in colours, hut generally 
without odour, except the rose and some jessamines. 

The greater part of the trees and plants mentioned belong also 
to tropical India, where vegetation is still more luxuriant ; a large 
portion of that magnificent country, containing 1,000,000 square 
miles, has been cultivated time immemorial, although vast tracts 
still remain in a state of nature. Those extensive mountain-chains 
which traverse and surround the Deccan are rich in primeval 
forests of stupendous growth with dense underwood. The most 
remarkable of these trees are the Indian cotton-tree and the Dom- 
beya, which is of the same order ; that which produces the Trin- 
comalee wood, used for building boats at Madras ; the red- wood 
tree, peculiar to the Coromandel coast, the satin-wood, the superb 
Butea frondosa, the agallochum tribe, which yields the odorous 
wood of aloes mentioned in Scripture, the Melaleuca leucadendron 
and the Melaleuca cajepute,from which the oil is prepared. The 
dragon's-blood tree is a native of India, though not exclusively, as 
some of the best specimens grow in Madagascar, where it is planted 
for hedges. Sanders- wood and dragon's-blood are obtained from 
the Pterocarpus sandalinus and Draco ; the sappan-tree gives a 
purple dye : these are all of the leguminous or bean tribe, of which 



328 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

there are 452 Indian species : ebony grows in these tropical re- 
gions, in Mauritius, and the south coast of Africa. 

Some of the fig tribe are among the most remarkable vegetable 
productions of India for gigantic size and peculiarity of form, which 
renders them valuable in a hot climate from the shade which their 
broad-spreading tops afford. Some throw off shoots from their 
branches, which take root on reaching the ground, and, after in- 
creasing in girth with wonderful rapidity, produce branches which 
also descend to form new roots, and this process is continued till a 
forest is formed round the parent tree. Mr. Reinwardt saw in the 
island of Simao a large wood of the Flcus Benjamina which sprang 
from one stem. The Ficus Indica, or banyan-tree, is another in- 
stance of this wide-spreading growth ; it is found in the islands, 
but is in greatest perfection around the villages in the Circar moun- 
tains : there is a tree of it on the banks of the Nerbudda, in the 
province of Guzerat, with 350 main stems, occupying an area of 
2000 feet in circumference, independent of its branches, which ex- 
tend much farther. The camphor genus is mostly Indian, as w^ell 
as many more of the laurel tribe of great size. The banana is the 
most generally useful tree in this country ; its fruit is food, its leaves 
are applied to many domestic purposes, and flax fit for making 
muslin is obtained from its stem. Cotton is a hairy covering of 
the seeds of several species of the mallow tribe which grow spon- 
taneously in tropical Asia, Africa, and America ; it is, however, 
cultivated in many countries beyond these limits. That grown in 
China and the United States of America is an herbaceous annual 
from 18 inches to 2 feet high : there are also cotton-trees, native 
and cultivated, in India, China, Africa, and America. Herodotus 
mentions cotton garments 445 years before the Christian era, and 
the Mexicans manufactured cotton cloth before the discovery of 
America. 

Palms, the most stately and graceful of the vegetable productions 
of tropical regions, are abundant in India, in forests, in groups, and 
in single trees. Some species grow at the limit of perpetual snow, 
some 900 feet above the sea, others in valleys and on the shores 
of the continent and islands. They decrease in number and variety 
as the latitude increases, and terminate at Nice, in 44° N. lat., 
their limit in the great continent. The leaves of some are of 
gigantic size, and all are beautiful, varying in height from the 
slender Calamus rotang, 130 feet high, to the Charaserops humilis, 
not more. than 15 or 20. Different species yield wine, oil, wax, 
flour, sugar, thread, and rope ; weapons and utensils are made of 
their stems and leaves ; they serve for the construction of houses ; 
the cocoa-nut palm gives food and drink ; sago is made from aJl 
except the Areca catechu, the fruit of which, the betel-nut, is used 
by the natives for its intoxicating quality. 



ARABIAN FLORA. 329 

Though palms in general are very limited in their distribution, 
a [ew species are very widely spread ; for example, the cocoa-nut 
palm, which grows spontaneously on the southern coasts of the 
Indo-Chinese peninsula and the Sunda Islands, from whence it has 
been carried to all the intertropical regions of the globe, where it 
has been extensively cultivated from its usefulness. So luxuriant 
is its growth in Ceylon, that in one year nearly 3,000,000 of nuts 
were exported ; in parts of that island, on the Malabar and Coro- 
mandel coasts, and in some districts in Bengal, the Borassus flabel- 
liformis supplies its place. 

The island of Ceylon, which may be regarded as the southern- 
most extremity of the Indian peninsula, is very mountainous, and 
rivals the islands of the Indian Archipelago in luxuriance of vege- 
table productions, and, in some respects, bears a strong resemblance' 
to them. The laurel, the bark of which is cinnamon, is indige- 
nous, and one of the principal sources of the revenue of Ceylon. 
The taleput leaves of a species of palm are of such enormous size, 
that they are applied to many uses by the Cingalese ; in ancient 
times strips of the leaf were written upon with a sharp style, and 
served as books. The sandalwood of Ceylon is of a different spe- 
cies from that of the South Sea islands, and its perfume more 
esteemed. Indigo is indigenous, and so is the choya, whose roots 
give a scarlet dye. The mountains produce a great variety of 
beautiful woods used in cabinet-work. It is a remarkable circum- 
stance in the distribution of plants, that the orchidete are very 
numerous in this island. 



ARABIAN VEGETATION. 

The third division of the tropical flora of Asia is the Arabian, 
which differs widely from the other two, and is chiefly marked by 
trees yielding balsams. Oceans of barren sand extend to the south, 
from Syria through the greater part of Arabia, varied only by occa- 
sional oases in those spots where a spring of water has reached 
the surface ; there the prevalent vegetation consists of the grasses, 
Holcus and Panicum dicotomum growing under the shade of the 
date-palm ; mimosas and stunted prickly bushes appear here and 
there in the sand. There is verdure on the mountains, and along 
some of the coasts, especially in the province of Yemen, which 
has a flora of its own. The Keura odorifera, a superb tree, with 
agreeable perfume, eight species of figs, the three species of Amy- 
ris — gileadensis, or balm of Gilead, opobalsamum also yielding 
balsam, and the kataf, from which myrrh is supposed to come — 
are peculiar to Arabia. Frankincense is said to be the produce of 
the BosweUia serrata ; and there are many species of Acacia, 
28* 



330 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

among others the Acacia arabica, which produces gum arabic. 
The arak and tamarind trees connect the botany of Arabia with 
that of the West Indies, while it is connected with that of the Cape 
of Good Hope by Stapehas, mesembryanthemums, and Hhaceous 
flowers. The character of Arabian vegetation, like that of other 
dry hot chmates, consists in its odoriferous plants and flowers. 

Arabia produces coflee, which, however, is not indigenous, but 
is supposed to have come from the table-land of Ethiopia, and to 
have its name from the province of Kaffa, where it forms dense 
forests. It was introduced into Arabia in the end of the fifteenth 
century, and grows luxuriantly in Arabia Felix, where the coffee 
is of the highest flavour. Most of that now used is the progeny 
of plants raised from seed and brought from Mocha to the Botanic 
'Garden at Amsterdam in 1690, by Van Hoorn, Governor of Batavia. 
A plant was sent to Louis XIV., in 1714, by the magistrates of 
Amsterdam — it was from this plant that the first coffee-plants were 
introduced in 1717 into the West India islands. A year after- 
wards the Dutch introduced coffee-trees into Surinam, from whence 
they spread rapidly over the warm parts of America and the West 
India islands. Many thousands of people are now employed in 
its cultivation there, in Demerara, Java, Manilla, the isle of Bour- 
bon, and other places. More than 3,000,000 pounds of coffee- 
beans are produced, and 100,000 tons of shipping are annually 
employed in its transport across the Indian and Atlantic Oceans. 
Coffee was not known till many centuries after the introduction of 
sugar. The first coffee-house was opened in London in 1652, and 
the first in France, at Marseilles, in 1671. 



CHAPTER XXVL 



African Flora— Flora of Austraha, New Zealand, Norfolk Island, and of 

Polynesia. 

The northern coast of Africa, and the range of the Atlas gener- 
ally, may be regarded as a zone of transition, where the plants 
of southern Europe are mingled with those pecuhar to the coun- 
try ; half the plants of northern Africa are also found in the other 
countries on the shores of the Mediterranean. Of 60 trees and 
248 shrubs which grow there, 100 only are peculiar to Africa, 
and about 18 of these belong to its tropical flora. There are 
about six times as many herbaceous plants as there are trees and 
shrubs ; and in the Atlas mountains, as in other chains, the peren- 
nial plants are much more numerous than annuals. Evergreens 



AFRICAN FLORA. 331 

predominate, and are the same as those on the other shores of the 
Mediterranean. The pomegranite, the locust-tree, the oleander, 
and the palmetto abound ; and the cistus tribe give a distinct 
character to the flora. The sandarach,or Thuia articulata, pecu- 
liar to the northern side of the Atlas mountains and to Cyrenaica, 
yields close-grained hard timber, used for the ceiling of mosques, 
and is supposed to be the shittim-wood of Scripture. The Atlas 
produces seven or eight species of oak, various pines, especially 
the Pinus maritima, and forests of the Aleppo pine in Algiers. 
The sweet-scented arborescent heath and Erica scoparia are 
native here, also in the Canary Islands and the Azores, where 
the tribe of house-leeks characterizes the botany. There are 534 
phanerogamous plants, or such as have the parts of fructification 
evident, in the Canary Islands ; of these, 310 are indigenous, the 
rest African : the Pinus canariensis is peculiar, and also the 
DracfEnse, which grow in perfection here. The stem of the 
Dracasna Draco, of the Villa Oratava in Teneriffe, measures 46 
feet in circumference at the base of the tree, which is 75 feet 
high. It is known to have been an object of great antiquity in 
the year 1402, and is still alive, bearing blossoms and fruit. If 
it be not an instance of the partial location of plants, there must 
have been intercourse between India and the Canary Islands in 
very ancient times. 

Plants with bluish-green succulent leaves are characteristic of 
tropical Africa and its islands ; and though the group of the 
Canaries has plants in common with Spain, Portugal, Africa, 
and the Azores, yet there are many species, and even genera, 
which are found in them only ; and the height of the moun- 
tains causes much variety in the vegetation. 

On the continent, south of the Atlas, a great change of soil and 
climate takes place ; the drought on the borders of the desert is 
so excessive that no trees can resist it, rain hardly ever falls, and 
the scorching blasts from the south speedily dry up any moisture 
that may exist ; yet, in consequence of what descends from the 
mountains, the date-palm forms large forests along their base, 
which supply the inhabitants with food, and give shelter to crops 
which could not otherwise grow. The date-palm, each tree of 
Avhich yields from 150 to 160 pounds weiglit of fruit, grows 
naturally, and is also cultivated, through northern Africa. It has 
been carried to the Canary Islands, Arabia, the Persian Gulf, and 
to Nice, the most northern limit of the palm-tribe. Stunted 
plants are the only produce of the desert, yet large tracts are 
covered with the Pennisetum dichotomum, a harsh prickly 
grass, which, together with the Alhagi maurorum, is the food of 
camels. 

The plants pecuhar to Egypt are acacias, mimosas, cassias, 



332 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

tamarisks, the Nyraphsea Lotus, the blue Lotus, the Papyrus, 
from which probably the first substance used for writing upon, 
was made, and has left its name to that we now use; also the 
Zizyphus or jujub, various mesembryanthemums, and most of the 
plants of Barbary grow here. The date-palm is not found higher 
on the Nile than Thebes, where it gives place to the doom-palm 
or Cucifera Thebaica, peculiar to this district, and singular as 
being the only palm that has a branched stem. 

The eastern side of equatorial Africa is less known than the 
western, but the floras of the two countries, under the same lati- 
tude, have little affinity : on the eastern side the Rubiacese, the 
Euphorbias, a race peculiarly African, and the Malvacese, are 
most frequent. The genus Danais of the coffee tribe distinguishes 
the vegetation of Abyssinia, also the Dombeya, a species of vine, 
various jessamines, a beautiful species of honeysuckle ; and Bruce 
says a caper-tree grows to the height of the elm, with white 
blossoms, and fruit as large as a peach. The daroo, or Ficus 
sj'-comorus, and the arak-tree, are native. The kollquall, or 
Euphorbia antiquorum, grows 40 feet high on the plain of Bahar- 
nagach, in the form of an elegant branched candelabrum, covered 
with scented fruit. The kantuffa or thornby shrub, is so great a 
nuisance from its spines, that even animals avoid it. The Ery- 
thrina Abyssinica bears a poisonous red bean wnth a black spot, 
used by ihe shangalla and other tribes for ages as a weight for 
gold, and by the women as necklaces. Mr. Rochet has lately 
brought some seeds of new grain from Shoa, that are likely to be 
a valuable addition to European cerealia. 

The vegetation of tropical Africa on the west is known only 
along the coast, where some affinity with that of India may be 
observed. It consists of 573 species of flower-bearing plants, 
and is distinguished by a remarkable uniformity, not only in 
orders and genera, but even in species, from the 16th degree of 
N. lat. to the river Congo in 6° S. lat. The most prevalent are 
the grasses and bean tribes, the Cyperacess Rubiaceae, and the 
Compositae. The Adansonia, or baobab of Senegal, is one of the 
most extraordinary vegetable productions ; the stem is sometimes 
34 feet in diameter, though the tree is rarely more than 50 or 
60 feet high ; it covers the sandy plains so entirely with its 
umbrella-shaped top, that a forest of these trees presents a com- 
pact surface, which at some distance seems to be a green field. 
Cape Verde has its name from the numbers that conceal the 
barren soil under their spreading tops ; some of them are very 
old, and, with the dragon-tree at Teneriffe, are supposed to be 
the most ancient vegetable inhabitants of the earth. The Pan- 
danus candelabrum, instead of growing crowded together in 
masses like the baobab, stands solitary on the equatorial plains, 



AFRICAN FLORA. 33S 

with its lofty forked branches ending- in tufts of long stiff leaves. 
Numerous sedges, of which the Papyrus is the most remarkable, 
give a character to this region, and cover boundless plains, waving 
in the wind like corn-fields, while other places are overgrown by 
forests of gigantic grasses with branching stems. 

A rich vegetation, consisting of impenetrable thickets of man- 
grove, the poisonous manchineel, and many large trees, cover the 
deltas of the rivers, and even grow so far into the water, that 
their trunks are coated with shell-fish ; but the pestilential exha- 
lations render it almost certain death to botanize in this luxuriance 
of nature. 

Various kinds of the soap or sapodilla trees are peculiar to 
Africa ; the butter-tree of the enterprising but unfortunate Mungo 
Park, the star-apple, the cream-fruit, the custard-apple, and the 
water-vine, are plentiful in Senegal and Sierra Leone. The 
ibraculea is peculiarly African ; its seeds are used to sweeten 
brackish water. The safu and bread-fruit of Polynesia are 
represented here by the musanga, a large tree of the nettle trihe, 
the fruit of which has the flavour of the hazel-nut. A few palms 
have very local habitations, as the Elais Guineensis, or palm-oil 
plant, found only on that coast. That graceful tribe is less varied 
in species in equatorial Africa than in the other continents. It 
appears that a great part of the flora of this portion of Africa is 
of foreign origin. 

The flora of south Africa differs entirely from that of the 
northern and tropical zones, and as widely from that of every 
other country, with the exception of Australia and some parts of 
Chile. The soil of the table-land at the Cape of Good Hope, 
stretching to an unknown distance, and of the Karoo plains and 
valleys between the mountains, is sometimes gravelly, but more 
frequently is composed of sand and clay ; in summer it is dry 
and parched, and most of its rivers are dried up ; it bears but a 
few stunted shrubs, some succulent plants and mimosas, along 
the margin of the river-courses. The sudden effect of rain on 
the parched ground is like magic : it is recalled to life, and in a 
short time is decked with a beautiful and pecuhar vegetation, 
comprehending, more than any other country, numerous and 
distinctly-defined foci of genera and species. 

Twelve thousand species of plants have been collected in the 
colony of the Cape in an extent of country about equal to Ger- 
many. Of these, heaths and proteas are two very conspicuous 
tribes ; there are 300 species of the former, and 200 of the latter, 
both of which have nearly the same limited range, though Mr. 
Bimbury found two heaths, and the Protca cynaroides, the most 
splendid of the family (bearing a flower the size of a man's hat), 
on the hills round Graham's Town, in the eastern part of the 



334 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

colony. These two tribes of plants are so limited that there is 
not one of either to be seen north of the mountains which bound 
the Great Karoo, and by much the greatest number of them grew 
within 100 miles of Cape Town ; indeed at the distance of only 
40 miles tbe prevaihng Proteaceae are different from those at the 
Cape. The Leucadendron argenteum, or silver-tree, which forms 
groves at the back of the table-mountain, is confined to the penin- 
sula of the Cape. The beautiful Drsa grandiflora is found only 
in one particular place on the top of the table-mountain. 

The dry sand of the west coast, and the country northward 
through many degrees of latitude, is the native habitation of 
Stapelias, succulent plants with square leafless stems, and flowers 
like star-fish, with the smell of carrion. A great portion of the 
eastern frontier of the Cape colony and the adjacent districts is 
covered with extensive thickets of a strong succulent and thorny 
vegetation, called by the natives the bush: similar thickets occur 
again far to the west, on the banks of the river Gauritz. The 
most common plants of the bush are aloes of many species, all 
exceedingly fleshy and some beautiful : the great red-flovfering 
arborescent aloe, and some others, make a conspicuous figure in 
the eastern part of the colony. Other characteristic plants of the 
eastern districts are the spek-boem, or Portulacaria afra, Schotia 
speciosa,and the great succulent euphorbias, which grow into real 
trees 40 feet high, branching like a candelabrum, entirely leafless, 
prickly, and with a very acrid juice. The Euphorbia meloformis, 
three feet in diameter, lies on the ground, to which it is attached 
by slender fibrous roots, and is confined to the mountains of Graaf 
Reynet. Euphorbias, in the Old World, correspond with the 
Cactus tribe, which belong exclusively to the New. The Zamia, 
a singular plant, having the appearance of a dwarf-palm, without 
any real similarity of structure, belongs to the eastern districts, 
especially to the great tract of bush on the Caflir frontier. 

Various species of Acacia are indigenous and much circum- 
scribed in their location : the Acacia horrida, or the white-thorned 
acacia, is very common in the eastern districts and in Caffirland. 
The Acacia cafra is strictly eastern, growing, along the margins 
of rivers, to which it is a great ornament. The Acacia detinens, 
or hook-thorn, is almost peculiar to Zand valley. 

It appears, from the instances mentioned, that the vegetation in 
the eastern districts of the colony differs from that on the western, 
yet many plants are generally diffused of orders and genera found 
only in this part of Africa : — Nearly all the 300 species of the 
fleshy succulent tribe of Mesembryanthemum, or Hottentot's fig; 
a great many beautiful species of the Oxalis, or wood-sorrel tribe ; 
every species of Gladiolus, with the exception of that in the corn- 
fields in Italy and France ; ixias innumerable, one with petals of 



AFRICAN FLORA. 335 

apple-green colour ; geraniums, especially the genus Pelargonium, 
or stork's bill, almost peculiar to this locality ; many varieties of 
Gnaphalium and Xeranthemum ; the brilliant Strelitzia ; 133 
species of the house-leek tribe, all fleshy, attached to the soil by 
a strong wiry root, and nourished more or less from the atmos- 
phere : Diosmas are widely scattered in great variety ; shrubby 
Boraginege with flowers of vivid colours, and Orchideae with large 
and showy blossoms. The leguminous plants and Cruciferse of 
the Cape are peculiar ; indeed all the vegetation has a distinct 
character, and both genera and species are confined within nar- 
rower limits than anywhere else, without any apparent cause to 
account for a dispersion so arbitrary. 

Notwithstanding the pecuharity of character with which the 
botany of the Cape is so distinctly marked, it is connected with 
that of very remote countries by particular plants ; for example, 
of the seven species of bramble which grow at the Cape, one is 
the common English bramble or blackberry. The affinity with 
New Holland is greater : in portions of the two countries in the 
same latitude there are several genera and species that are iden- 
tical : Proteacese are common to both, so are several genera of 
Iridese, Leguminosae, Ficoidese, Myrtaceas, Diosmese, and some 
others. The botany of the Cape is connected with that of India, 
and even that of South America, by a few congeners. 

The vegetation of Madagascar, though similar in many respects 
to the floras of India and Africa, nevertheless is its own : the 
Brexiaceas and Chlenaceae are orders found nowhere else : there 
are species of Bignonia, Cycade^, and Zamias, a few of the man- 
gosteen tribe, and in the mountains some heaths. The Plydro- 
geton fenestraiis is a singular aquatic plant, with leaves like the 
dried skeletons of leaves, having no green fleshy substance, and 
the Tanghinia veneniflua, which produces a poison so deadly that 
its seeds are used to execute criminals, and one seed is sufficient. 

Some genera and species are common and peculiar to Madagas- 
car, the Isle of Bourbon, and Mauritius; yet of the 161 known 
genera in Madagascar only 54 grow on the other two islands. 
The three islands are rich in ferns. The Pandanus, or screw- 
pine genus, abounds in Bourbon and the Mauritius, where it 
covers sandy plains, sending off' strong aerial roots from the stem, 
which strike into the ground and protect the plant from the vio- 
lent winds. Of 290 genera in Bourbon and Mauritius, 196 also 
grow in India, though the species are difl^erent : there is also 
some resemblance to the vegetation of South Africa, and there is 
a solitary genus in common with America. 

Eight or ten degrees north of Madagascar lies the group of the 
Seychelles Islands, in which are groves of the peculiar palm 
which bears the double cocoa-nut, or coco de mer, the growth of 



336 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

these islands only. Its gigantic leaves are employed in the con- 
struction of houses, and other parts of the plant are appHed to 
various domestic purposes. 



FLORA OF AUSTRALIA. 

The interior of the Australian continent is so little known, that 
the flora which has come under observation is confined to a short 
distance from the coast ; but it is of so strange and unexampled a 
character, that it might easily be mistaken for the production of 
another planet. Many entire orders of plants are known only in 
Australia, and the genera and species of others that grow else- 
where assume new and singular forms. Evergreens, with hard 
narrow leaves of a sombre, melancholy hue, are prevalent, and 
there are whole shadowless forests of leafless trees; the foot- 
stalks, dilated and set edgewise on the stem, supply their place 
and perform the functions of nutrition ; their altered position 
gives them a singular appearance. Plants in other countries 
have glands on the under side of the leaves, but in Australia 
there are glands on both sides of these substitutes for leaves, 
which make them dull and lustreless, and the changes of the 
seasons have no influence on the unvarying olive-green of the 
Australian forests ; even the grasses are distinguished from the 
graminesB of other countries by a remarkable rigidity. Torres 
Straits, in the north, only 50 miles broad, separates this dry, som- 
bre vegetation from the luxuriant jungle-clad shores of New 
Guinea, where deep and dark forests are rich in more than the 
usual tropical exuberance — a more complete and sudden change 
can hardly be imagined. 

The peculiarly Australian vegetation is in the southern part of 
the continent of New Holland distributed in distinct foci in the 
same latitude, a circumstance of which the Proteacese afford a 
remarkable instance. Nearly one-half of the known species of 
these beautiful shrubs grow in the parallel of Port Jackson, from 
which they decrease in number both to the south and the north. 
In that latitude, however, there are twice as many species on the 
eastern side of the continent as there are on the western, and four 
times as many as in the centre. Although the Proteacese at both 
extremities of the continent have all the characters peculiar to 
Austraha, yet those on the eastern coast resemble the South 
American species, while those on the western side have a resem- 
blance to African forms, and are confined to the same latitudes. 

Species of this family are numerous in Van Diemen's Land ; 
where they thrive at the elevation of 3500 feet, and also on the 
plains. The myrtle tribe form a conspicuous featu^re in Austra- 



FLORA OF AUSTRALIA. 337 

lian vegetation, particularly the genera Eucalyptus, Melaleuca, 
Beaufortia, and others, with splendid blossoms — white, purple, 
yellow, crimson : 100 species of the Eucalypti, most of them large 
trees, grow in New Holland ; they form great forests in the 
colony of Port Jackson. The leafless acacias, of which there are 
93 species, are a prominent feature in the Austrahan landscape. 
The leaves, except in very young plants, are merely foliaceous 
foot-stalks, presenting their margin towards the stem ; yet these 
and the Eucalypti form the densest shade of any trees in the 
country. The genus Casuarina, with its strange-jointed, droop- 
ing branches, called the marsh-oak, holds a conspicuous place ; 
it is chiefly confined to the principal parallel of this vegetation, 
and produces excellent timber ; it grows also in the Malayan 
peninsula and South Sea islands. The Oxleya xanthoxylon or 
yellow wood, one of the mahogany tribe, grows to great size, and 
the Podocarpus aspleniifoHa forms a new genus of the cone-bear- 
ing trees. Some of the nettle tribe grow 15 or even 20 feet high. 
The Epacridese, with scarlet, rose, and white blossoms, supply 
the place of, and very much resemble, heaths, which do not exist 
here. The purple-flowering Tremandrese ; the yellow-flowering 
Dilleniaceae ; the Doryanthes excelsa, the most splendid of the lily 
tribe, 24 feet high, with a brilliant crimson blosssom ; the Banksia, 
the most Australian of all the ProteacesB ; with Zamias of new 
species, are all conspicuous in the vegetation of Port Jackson. 

There is a change on the north-eastern coast of New Holland. 
The Castanospermum Australe is so plentiful that it furnishes the 
principal food of the natives ; a caper-tree of grotesque form, 
having the colossal dimensions of the Senegal baobab, and extra- 
ordinary trees of the fig genus, characterize this region. It some- 
times occurs, when the seeds of these fig-trees are deposited by 
birds on the iron-bark-tree, or Eucalyptus resinifera, that they 
vegetate and enclose the trunk of the tree entirely with their 
roots, whence they send off enormous lateral branches, which so 
completely envelop the tree, that at last its top alone is visible in 
the centre of the fig-tree, at the height of 70 or 80 feet. The 
Pandanus genus flourishes within the influence of the sea-air. 
There are only six species of palms, equally local in their habita- 
tions as elsewhere, not one of which grows on the west side of 
the continent. The Araucaria excelsa, or Norfolk Island pine, 
produces the best timber of any tree in this part of Austraha : it, 
or others of the same genus, extends from the parallel of 29° on 
the east coast towards the equator, and grows over an area of 900 
square miles, including New Norfolk, New Caledonia, and other 
islands, some of which have no other timber-tree : they are sup- 
posed to exist only within the influence of the sea. The Aspho- 
29 



338 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

delese abound and extend to the southern extremity of Van Die- 
man's Land. 

The south-western districts of New Holland exhibit another 
focus of vegetation, less rich in species than that of Port Jackson, 
but not less peculiar. The Kingia Australis, or grass-tree, rises 
solitary on the sandy plains, with bare blackened trunks as if 
scathed by lightning, occasioned by the fires of the natives, and 
tufts of long grassy leaves at their extremities ; Banksias, particu- 
larly the kind called wild honeysuckle, are numerous ; the Styli- 
dium, whose blossoms are even more irritable than the leaves of 
the sensitive mimosa, and plants with dry, everlasting blossoms, 
characterize the flora of these districts. The greater part of the 
southern vegetation vanishes on the northern coasts of the conti- 
nent, and what remains is mingled with the cabbage-palm, various 
species of the nutmeg tribe, sandal-wood, and other Malayan forms 
—a circumstance that may hereafter be of importance to our 
colonists. 

Orchidese, chiefly terrestrial, are in great variety in the extra- 
tropical regions of New Holland, and the grasses amount to one- 
fourth of the monocotyledonous plants. Reeds of gigantic size 
form forests in the marshes, and kangaroo-grass covers the plains. 

Beautiful and varied as the flora is. New Holland is by no 
means luxuriant in vegetation. There is little appearance of 
verdure, the foliage is poor, the forests often shadeless, and the 
grass thin ; but in many valleys of the mountains, and even on some 
parts of the plains, the vegetation is vigorous. It is not the least 
remarkable circumstance in this extraordinary flora, that, with the 
exception of a few berries, there is no edible fruit, grain, or vege- 
table indigenous either in New Holland or Van Diemen's Land. 

The plants of New Holland prevail in every part of Van Die- 
men's Land ; yet the coldness of the climate and the height of the 
mountains permit genera of the northern hemisphere to be mixed 
with the vegetation of the country. Butter-cups, anemones, and 
polygonums of peculiar species grow on the mountain-tops, toge- 
ther with Proteaceae and other Australian plants. The plains 
glow with the warm golden flowers of the black wattle, a Mimosa, 
emblematic of the island, and with the equally bright and orange 
blossom of the gorse, which perfumes the whole atmosphere. 
Only one tree-fern grows in this country ; it rises 20 feet to the 
base of the fronds, which spread into an elegant top, producing a 
shadow gloomy as night-fall, and there are 150 species of orchis. 
The southern extremities both of New Holland and Van Diemen's 
Land are characterized by the prevalence of evergreen plants : 
but the trees here, as well as in the other parts of the southern 
hemisphere, do not shed their leaves periodically as with us. 

The botany of New Zealand appears to be intimately alhed to 



FLORA OF NEW ZEALAND. 339 

that of New Holland, South America, and South Africa, but 
chiefly to that of New Holland. Noble trees form impenetrable 
forests, 60 of which yield the finest timber, and many are of kinds 
to which we have nothing similar. Here there are no represen- 
tatives of our oak, birch, or willow, but five species of beech and 
ten of Coniferse have been discovered that are pecuhar to the 
country. They are all alpine, and only descend to the level of 
the sea in the southern parts of the island. The Coniferse of the 
southern hemisphere are more local than in the northern ; of the 
ten species peculiar to New Zealand it is not certain that more 
than two or three are found in the middle island, or that any of 
them grow south of the 40th parallel. The Kauri pine, or Dam- 
mara austrahs, is indigenous in all the three islands, but it is the 
only cone-bearing tree in North Island, where it grows in hilly 
situations near the sea, shooting up with a clean stem 60 or 90 
feet, sometimes 30 feet in diameter, with a spreading but thin 
top, and generally has a quantity of transparent yellow resin 
imbedded at its base. This fine tree does not grow beyond the 
38th degree of S. lat. The Metrosideros tomentosa, with rich 
crimson blossoms, is one of the greatest ornaments of the forests, 
and the Metrosideros robusta the most singular. It grows to a 
very great size, and sends shoots from its trunk and branches to 
the ground, which become so massive that they support the old 
stem, which to all appearance loses its vitality ; it is in fact an 
enormous epiphyte, growing to, and not from, the ground. Many 
of the smaller trees are of the laurel tribe, with poisonous berries. 
Besides, there is a cabbage-palm, the Areca sapida, elder, the 
Fuchsia excorticata, and other shrubs. This country is probably 
the southern limit of the orchideous plants that grow on trees. 
Before New Zealand was colonized, the natives lived chiefly on 
the roots of the edible fern, Pteris eseulenta, with which the 
country is densely covered, mixed with a shrub that grows like a 
cypress, and the tea-plant, which is a kind of myrtle whose ber- 
ries aflbrd an intoxicating liquor. More than 140 species of fern 
are natives of these islands, some of which are arborescent and 
40 feet high ; the country is chiefly covered with these and with 
the New Zealand flax, Phormium tenax, which grows abundantly 
both on the mountains and plains. The vegetation is so vigorous 
on these volcanic islands that it grows richly on the banks of hot 
springs, and even in water too hot to be touched.^'' 

In Norfolk Island, 152 species of plants are already known, and 
many, no doubt, are yet to be discovered. The Cape gooseberry 
or Physalis edulis,the guava-tree, pepper, white and swamp oak, 
iron, blood-wood, and lemon trees, are native; also the bread-fruit 

67 Dr. Mantel. 



340 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

tree, which blossoms, but does not bear fruit. The Araucaria 
excelsa and some palms are indigenous, and there are three times 
as many ferns as of all the other plants together. 

The multitude of islands of Polynesia constitute a botanical 
region apart from all others, though it is but little varied, and 
characterized principally by the number of syngenesious plants 
with arborescent terms and tree-ferns. In continental India and 
the tropical parts of New Holland, the proportion of ferns to con- 
spicuously-flowering plants is as 1 to 26, while on the Polynesiaa 
islands it is as 1 to 4, and perhaps even as 1 to 3.^^ 

The cocoa-nut palm and the pandanus are common to all the 
islands, but the latter thrives only when exposed to the sea-air. 
This archipelago produces Tacca pinnatifida, which yields arrow- 
root; the Morus papyrifera, whose bark is manufactured into 
paper ; and one of the Dracaena tribe, from which an intoxicating 
liquor is made. Fifty varieties of the bread-fruit tree are in- 
digenous, which produce three or four crops annually. It is most 
abundant in the Friendly, Society, and Caroline groups, from 
whence it has been taken to America, where it thrives in very 
low latitudes. The Sandwich group is peculiar in the number of 
Goodenias and Lobelias ; while the Coral Islands, whose flora is 
entirely borrowed, rarely have two species belonging to the same 
genus; the fragrant suriana and sweet-scented Tournfortia are 
among their scanty vegetation. - 

The two species of banana-trees which are natives of southern 
Asia have been introduced at an unknown and probably early 
period into the Polynesian islands, and all tropical countries in 
the eastern and western hemispheres. Syria is their northern 
limit, where the Musa paradisaica grows to 34° N. lat. The 
sweet fruit of these trees produces, on the same extent of ground, 
44 times as much nutriment as the potato, and 133 times more 
than wheat. 

St. Eielena, the Sandwich group. New Zealand, Juan Fernandez, 
and above all the Galapagos islands, are more peculiar in their 
floras than any other tracts of their size. The Galapagos archi- 
pelago consists of 10 principal islands lying immediately under 
the equator, 600 miles from the coast of America. They are 
entirely volcanic, and contain 2000 extinct craters. The vegeta- 
tion is so pecuhar that, of 180 plants which have been collected, 
100 are found nowhere else; of 21 species of Compositse all but 
one are new, and belong to 10 genera, 8 of which are confined to 
these islands exclusively. 

This flora has no analogy to that of Polynesia, but it bears a 
double relation to the flora of South America. The plants pecu- 

58 Dr. J. D. Hooker. 



FLORA OF POLYNESIA. 341 

liar to the Galapagos islands are, for the most part, allied to those 
on the cooler part of the continent or on high lands, while the 
others are the same with those that abound in the hot damp inter- 
tropical regions of the continent. The greatest number of pecu- 
liar plants grow on the tops of the islands where the sea vapour 
is condensed, and many of them are confined to some one islet of 
the group. Though this flora is singular, it is poor compared 
with that of the Sandwich group, or the Cape de Verde Islands.^^ 



CHAPTER XXVII. 



American Vegetation — Flora of North, Central, and South America- 
Antarctic Flora — Origin and Distribution of the Cerealia — Ages of 
Trees — Marine Vegetation. 

From similarity of physical circumstances the arctic flora of 
America bears a strong resemblance to that of the northern re- 
gions of Europe and Asia. This botanical district comprises 
Greenland, and extends considerably to the south of the arctic 
circle, especially at the eastern and western ends of the continent, 
where it reaches the 60th parallel of N. lat., and even more ; it 
is continued along the tops of the Rocky Mountains almost to 
Mexico, and it re-appears on the White Mountains and a few 
other parts of the Alleghanies. 

Greenland has a much more arctic flora than Iceland ; the val- 
leys are entirely covered with mosses and marsh-plants, and the 
gloomy rocks are cased in sombre lichens that grow under the 
snow, and the grasses on the pasture-grounds that line the fiords 
are nearly four times less varied than those of Iceland. In some 
sheltered spots the service-tree bears fruit, and birches grow to 
the height of a few feet : but ligneous plants in general trail on 
the ground. 

The arctic flora of America has much the same character with 
that of Europe and Asia, and many species are common to all ; 
still more are representative, but there is a difference in the vege- 



^^ The Euphorbia and Borreria are the distinguishing features of the 
low grounds in the Galapagos islands; while the Scleria, croton, and 
Cordia mark the high grounds. Composita3 and Campanulaceae dis- 
tinguish St. Helena and Juan Fernandez. The prevailing plants in the 
Sandwich group are the GoodeniacecB and Lobeliacece; and in New 
Zealand ferns and club-mosses prevail; almost to the exclusion of tho 
grasses. — Dr. J. D. Hooker. 
.29* 



342 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

tation at the two extremities of the continent ; there are 30 species 
in the east and 20 in the west end which grow nowhere else. 
The sameness of character changes with the barren treeless lands 
at the verge of the Arctic region, and the distribution of plants 
varies both with the latitude and the longitude. Taking a broad 
view of the botanical districts of North America, there are two 
woody regions, one on the eastern, the other on the western side 
of the continent, separated by a region of prairies where grasses 
and herbaceous plants predominate. The vegetation of these 
three parts, so dissimilar, varies with the latitude, but not after 
the same law as in Europe, for the winter is much colder and the 
summer warmer on the eastern coasts of America than on the 
western coast of Europe, owing, in a great measure, to the preva- 
lence of westerly winds which bring cold and damp to our shores. 
Boundless forests of black and white spruce, with an under- 
growth of reindeer moss, cover the country south of the Arctic 
region, which are afterwards mixed with other trees ; gooseberries, 
strawberries, currants, and some other plants thrive there. There 
are vast forests in Canada of pines, oak, ash, hickory, red beech, 
birch, the lofty Canadian poplar, sometimes 100 feet high and 36 
feet in circumference, and sugar-maple ; the prevailing plants are 
Kalmias, azaleas, and asters, the former vernal, the latter autumnal ; 
sohdagos and asters are the most characteristic plants of this re- 

The splendour of the North American flora is displayed in the 
United States ; the American sycamore, chestnut, black walnut, 
hickory, white cedar, wild cherry^ red birch, locust-tree, tulip- 
tree, or Liriodendron, the g^lory of American forests, liquid-ambar, 
oak, ash, pine-trees of many species, grow luxuriantly, with an 
undergrowth of rhododendrons, azaleas, Andromedas, Gerardias, 
Calycanthus, Hydrangea, and many more of woody texture, with 
an infinite variety of herbaceous and climbing plants. 

The vegetation is different on the two sides of the Alleghany 
mountains ; the locust-tree, Canadian poplar, Hibiscus, and Hy- 
drangea, are most common on the west side; the American chest- 
nut and ECalmias are so numerous on the Atlantic side as to give 
a distinctive character to the flora : here, too, aquatic plants are 
more frequent ; among these the Sarracenia or side-saddle flower, 
singular in form, with leaves like pitchers covered with a lid, half 
full of water. 

The autumnal tints of the forests in the middle States are 
beautiful and of endless variety; the dark leaves of the evergreen 
pine, the red fohage of the maple, the yellow bee.ch, the scarlet 
oak, and purple Nyssa, with all their intermediate tints, ever 
changing with the light and distance, produce an effect at sunset 
that would astonish the native of a country with a more sober- 
coloured flora under a more cloudy sky. 



FLORA OF NORTH AMERICA. 343 

In Virginia, Kentucky, and the southern States, the vegetation 
assumes a different aspect, though many plants of more northern 
districts are mixed with it. Trees and shrubs here are remark- 
able for broad shining leaves and splendid blossoms, as the Gle- 
ditschia, Catalpa, Hibiscus, and all the family of Magnolias, which 
are natives of the country, excepting a very few found in Asia 
and the Indian islands. They are the distinguishing feature of 
the flora from Virginia to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the Atlantic 
to the Rocky Mountains : the Magnolia grandiflora and the tulip- 
tree are the most splendid specimens of this race of plants ; the 
latter is often 120 feet high. The long-leaved pitch-pine, one of 
the most picturesque of trees, covers an arid soil on the coast of 
the Atlantic of 60,000 square miles. The swamps so common in 
the southern States are clothed with gigantic deciduous cypress, 
the aquatic oak, swamp hickory, w^th the magnificent Nelumbium 
luteum and other aquatics, and among the innumerable herbaceous 
plants the singular Dionsea muscipula, or American fly-trap : the 
trap is formed by two opposite lobes of the leaf, covered with 
spines, and so irritable, that they instantly close upon the insect 
that has come to Hght upon them. This Magnolia region cor- 
responds in latitude with the southern shores of the Mediterra- 
nean, but the climate is hotter and more humid, in consequence 
of which there is a considerable number of Mexican plants. A 
few dwarf^palms appear among the Magnolias, and the forests in 
Florida and Alabama are covered with Tillandsia usneoides, an 
air-plant, which hangs from the boughs.^" 

Ten or twelve species of grass cover the extensive prairies or 
steppes of the valley of the Mississippi. The forms of the Tar- 
tarian steppes appear to the north in the Centaurea, Artemisia, 
Astragali; but the Dahlias, CEnotheras, with many more, are 
their own. The Helianthus and Coreopsis, mixed with some 
European genera, mark the middle regions ; and in the south, 
towards the Rocky Mountains, Clarkia and Bartonia are mixed 
with the Mexican genera of Cactus and Yucca. The western 
forest is less extensive and less varied than the eastern, but the 
trees are larger. This flora in high latitudes is but little known ; 
the Thuia gigantea on the Rocky Mountains and the coast of the 
Pacific is 200 feet high. Claytonias and currants, with plants of 
northern Asia, are found here. 

Farther west, the Pinus Lambertiana is another specimen of the 
stupendous trees of this flora; seven species of pine are indigenous 
in California, some of which have measured 200, and even 300 

6° Of 2891 species of flower-bearing plants in the United States of 
North America, there are 385 found also in northern and temperate 
Europe. 



344 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

feet high, and 80 in circumference. Captain Sir Edward Belcher, 
in his "Voyage on the Pacific," mentions having measured an 
oak 27 feet in circumference, and another 18 feet girth at the 
height of 60 feet from the ground, before the branches began to 
spread. This is the native soil of the currant-bushes with red 
and yellow blossoms, of many varieties of lupins, pseonies, poppies, 
and other herbaceous plants so ornamental in our gardens. 

There are 882 genera of plants pecuhar to North America, 
exclusive of Mexico, but no family of any great extent has yet 
been discovered there. About 160 large trees yield excellent 
timber; the wood of the pine-trees of the eastern forests is of in- 
ferior quality to that grown on the other side of the continent, and 
both appear to be less valuable than the pine-wood of Europe, 
which is best when produced in a cold climate. The Pinus Cem- 
bra and the Pinus uncinata are the most esteemed of the Old 
World. 

The native fruits of North America are mostly of the nut-kind, 
and there are many of these, to which may be added the Florida 
orange, the Chicasa plum, the papaw, the banana, the red mul- 
berry, and the plumlike fruit of the persimon. There are seven 
species of wild grapes, but good wine has not hitherto been pro- 
duced. Although America has contributed so much to the orna- 
ment of our pleasure-grounds and gardens, yet there are compara- 
tively few North American plants which have become an object 
of extensive cultivation, while America has borrowed largely from 
other parts of the globe; the grapes cultivated in North America 
are European ; tobacco, Indian corn, and many others of the 
utmost commercial value are strangers to the soil, having been 
introduced by the earliest inhabitants from Mexico and South 
America, which have contributed much more to general utiUty. 



FLORA OF MEXICO AND THE WEST INDIES. 

Mexico itself unites the vegetation of North and South America, 
though it resembles that of the latter more nearly. Whole pro- 
vinces on the table-land and mountains produce alpine plants, 
oaks, chestnuts, and pines spontaneously. The Cheirostemon, 
or hand-tree, so named from the resemblance its stigma bears to 
the human hand, grows here, and also in the Guatimala forests. 

The low lands of Mexico and Central America have a very rich 
flora, consisting of many orders and genera peculiar to them, and 
species without number, a great portion of which are unknown. 
The Hymenea Courbaril, from which the copal of Mexico is ob- 
tained, logwood, mohogany, and many other large trees, valuable 
for their timber, grow in the forests ; sugar-cane, tobacco, indigo, 



FLORA OF MEXICO, 345 

American aloe, yam, capsicum, and yucca, are indigenous in 
Mexico and Central America. It is the native region of the Melas- 
tomas, of which 620 species are known ; almost all the pepper 
tribe, the Passifloroe, the ornament and pride of tropical America 
and the West Indian islands, begin to be numerous in these regions. 
The pine-apple is entirely American, growing in the woods and 
savannahs: it has been carried to the West Indies, to the East 
Indies and China, and is naturalized in all. This country has 
also produced the cherimoya, said to be the most exquisite of fruits. 
All the vanilla that is used in Europe comes from the States of 
Vera Cruz and Oaxaca, on the eastern slopes of the Cordillera of 
Anahuac in Mexico. It is native throughout tropical America, 
growing in hot, damp, shady places. Hot arid tracts are covered 
with the Cactus tribe, a family of Central America and Mexico, 
which is more widely dispersed than the anana : some species bear 
a considerable degree of cold. They are social plants, inhabiting 
sandy plains in thickets, and of many species : their forms are 
various, and their blossoms beautiful. A few occur at a consider- 
able distance from the tropics, to the north and the south. The 
night-flowering Cereus grows in all its beauty in the arid parts of 
Chile, filling the night air with its perfume. The Cactus opuntia 
grows in the Rocky Mountains ; and Sir George Back found a 
small island in the Lake of the Woods covered with it. This spe- 
cies has been brought to Europe, and now grows a common weed 
on the borders of the Mediterranean. In Mexico, the cochineal 
insect was collected from the Cactus coccinellifer long before the 
Spanish conquest. There are large fields of American aloe, from 
which a liquor called pulque, and also an ardent spirit, are made. 
The ancient Mexicans made their hemp from this plant, and also 
their paper. The forests of Panama contain at least 97 different 
kinds of trees, which grow luxuriantly in a climate where the tor- 
rents of rain are so favourable to vegetation, and so unfavourable 
to life that the tainted air is deadly even to animals. 

The sugar-cane is a native of both continents ; Columbus found 
it wild in many parts of America: the sweet cane is mentioned 
by the Prophets, and it has grown time immemorial on the coasts 
of China and in the islands of the Pacific. Its culture ranges 
throughout the torrid zone, and to latitudes where the mean tem- 
perature is not under 64° of Fahrenheit. It grows on the plains 
of Nepaul at an absolute elevation of 4800 feet, and at the height 
of from 3500 to 5100 feet in the Cordillera of New Grenada. It 
is now scarcely cultivated in the southern provinces of New Spain, 
where it was introduced by the Spaniards, but it is extensively 
raised in Guiana, Brazil, the West India islands, the Mauritius, 
Bourbon, Bengal, Siam, Java, the Phihppine islands, and China. 

Maize or Indian corn is believed to have come originally from 



346 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

Mexico and South America. It is an annual, requiring only sum- 
mer heat ; its limit is 50° N. in the American continent, and 47° 
N. in Europe ; it ripens at an elevation of 7600 feet in low lati- 
tudes, and in the Lower Pyrenees at the height of 3289 feet.^^ 

The flora of each West Indian island is similar to that of the 
continent opposite to it. The Myrtus pimento, producing allspice, 
is common in the hills ; custard-apple, guava, the avocado pear, 
and tobacco, are indigenous ; the cabbage-palm grows to the height 
of 150 feet ; the palma-real of Cuba is the most majestic of that 
noble family ; and in Barbadoes there still exists a tree, but w^ear- 
ing out rapidly, which has given the island its name. 



FLORA OF TROPICAL AMERICA. 

Although the flora of tropical America is better explored than 
that of Asia or Africa, there must still be thousands of plants of 
which we have no knowledge ; and those which have come under 
observation are so varied and so numerous, that it is not possible 
to convey an idea of the peculiarities of this vegetation, or of the 
extent and richness of its woodlands. The upper Orinoco flows 
for some hundred miles chiefly through forests; and the silvas of 
the Amazons are six times the size of France. In these the trees 
are colossal, and the vegetation so matted together by underwood, 
creeping and parasitical plants, that the sun's rays can scarcely 
penetrate the dense foliage. 

These extensive forests are by no means uniform ; they differ 
on each side of the equator, though climate and other circumstances 
are the same. Venezuela, Guiana, the Amazona, and Brazil, are 
each the centre of a pecuhar flora. So partialis this splendid 
vegetation, that almost each tributary of the great rivers has a flora 
of its own : particular famihes of plants are so restricted in their 
localities, and predominate so exclusively where they occur, that 
they change the appearance of the forest. Thus, from the preva- 
lence of the orders Laurineee, Sapotacese, and others, which have 
leathery, shining, and entire leaves, the forests through which the 
Rio Negro, Cassiquiare, and Tuamine flow, differ in aspect from 
those of the other affluents of the Amazons. Even the grassy 
llanos, so uniform in appearance, have their centres of vegetation ; 
and only agree with the pampas of Buenos Ayres in being covered 
with grass and herbs. In these tropical regions the flora varies 
with the altitude also. On the Andes, almost at the hmit of vege- 
tation, the ground is covered with purple, azure, and scarlet gen- 

^^ In the basin of Titicaca in Pera-Bolivia, Mr. Pentland has seen -a 
variety of maize ripen as high as 12,800 feet. 



FLORA OF TROPICAL AMERICA. 347 

tians, drabas, alcliemillas, and many other brilliantly-coloured alpine 
plants. This zone is followed by thickets of coriaceous-leaved 
plants, in perpetual bloom and verdure ; and then come the forest- 
trees. Arborescent ferns ascend to 7000 feet ; the coffee-tree and 
palms to 5000 ; and neither indigo nor cocoa can be cuhivated 
lower than 2000. The tree yielding cocoa, of which chocolate is 
made, grows wild in Guiana, Mexico, and on the coast of the Ca- 
raccas ; it is now cultivated in Central and South America, even 
to Chile, also in the Canary and Philippine islands, into which it 
WD.S introduced by the Spaniards. The seeds of its fruit, which 
is hke d cucumber, are the cocoa. 

Many parts of the coasts of Venezuela and Guiana are rendered 
pestilential by the effluvia of the mangrove, Avicennia, and the 
manchineel, one of the Euphorbia family, consisting of 562 spe- 
cies in tropical America, all having milky juice, deleterious in the 
greater number. The well-known poison Ourari is prepared by 
the Indians of Guiana from the fruit and bark of the Strychnos 
toxicaria, than which nature has probably produced no plants more 
deadly. This Ourari (or Wourali) is a creeping plant which yields 
the deadly juice, the powerful effect of which was proved by Mr. 
Waterton's experiments. 

' The Cinchona, or true bark-tree, grows only on the Cordilleras 
of the Andes.°^ Some of its medicinal qualities are found in other 
plants of different genera in Guiana, as the Cusparia carony, which 
produces the Angostura bark. The Sapindus saponaria, or soap- 
tree, is used by the natives for washing. Capsicum, vanilla, the 
incense-plant, the Dipteryx odorata, whose fruit is the tonquin- 
bean, and the cassava or .mandioc, are natives of the country. 
There are two kinds of mandioc, a shrub whose fleshy roots yield 
a farina eaten by the natives of Spanish America and Brazil : the 
root of one is harmless, but the other contains a poisonous milky 
juice, the effects of which are removed by cultivation or pressure. 
It grows to about 30° on each side of the equator, and to 3200 feet 
above the sea-level. An acre of mandioc is said to yield as much 
nourishment as six acres of wheat. 

Arrow-root is native in South America ; it has been transported 
to the West Indies and Ceylon. The flour is the produce of the 
root. The plant is said to owe its name to the belief of its being 
an antidote to the poison of the arrows of the Indians. The cow^- 
tree, almost confined to the Cordillera of the coast of Venezuela, 
yields such abundance of nutritious milky juice that it is carried 

"2 Dr. Weddellj a veiy distinguished botanist, who has recently re- 
turned from an exploration of the districts of the Andes which furnish 
the Peruvian bark of commerce, has discovered several new species of 
Cinchona, the total number of wliichj according to his beautiiul mono- 
graphy, now amounts to 21. 



348 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

in gourds, like milk from the cow. The chocolate-plant, or cacao- 
shrub, fruits of the most excellent flavour, plants yielding balsam, 
resin, and gum, are numerous in the tropical regions. There the 
laurel tribe assume the character of majestic trees : some are so 
rich in oil, that it gushes from a wound in the bark. One of these 
laurels produces the essential oil which dissolves caoutchouc, or 
Indian rubber, used in rendering cloth Avaterproof. 

Plantains of gigantic size form large forests ; but palms are the 
most numerous and the most beautiful of all the trees in these 
countries. There are 90 species of them ; and they are so local 
that a change takes place every 50 miles. They are the greatest 
ornament of the upper Orinoco. 

The llanos of Venezuela and Guiana are covered with tall grass, 
mixed with lilies and other bulbous flowers, sensitive mimosas, and 
palms constantly varying in species. 

No language can describe the glory of the forests of the Amazon, 
and Brazil, the endless variety of form, the contrasts of colour 
and size : there even the largest trees bear brilliant blossoms ; scar- 
let, purple, blue, rose-colour, and golden yellow, are blended with 
every possible shade of green. Majestic trees, as the Bombax 
ceiba (or silk-cotton tree), the dark-leaved mora with its white 
blossoms, the fig, cashew, and mimosa tribes, which are here of 
unwonted dimensions, and a thousand other giants of the forest, 
are contrasted with the graceful palm, the dehcate Acacia, reeds 
of 100 feet high, grasses of 40, and tree-ferns in myriads. Passi- 
florcB and slender creepers twine round the lower plants, while 
others as thick as cables climb the lofty trees, drop again to the 
ground, rise anew and stretch from bough to bough, wreathed with 
their own leaves and flowers, yet intermixed with the vividly 
coloured blossoms of the Orchidess. An impenetrable and ever- 
lasting vegetation covers the ground; decay and death are con- 
cealed by the exuberance of life ; the trees are loaded with para- 
sites while alive — they become masses of living plants when they 
die. 

One twenty-ninth part of the flowering plants of the Brazilian 
forests are of the coffee-tribe, and the rose-coloured and yellow- 
flowering bignonias are among their greatest ornaments, where all 
is grace and beauty. Thousands of herbs and trees must still be 
undescribed where each stream has its own vegetation. The 
palm-trees are the glory of the forest: 81 species of these plants 
are natives of the intertropical parts of Brazil alone ; they are of 
all sizes, from such as have hardly any stem to those that rise 130 
feet.^^ In those parts of Brazil less favoured by nature, the forests 

6' Professor Martius, of Munich, in his great work on Palms, has de- 
scribed 500, accompanied with excellent coloured plates. It is supposed 
that the number of species throughout the world amounts to 1000. 



FLORA OF SOUTH AMERICA. 349 

consist of stunted deciduous trees, and the boundless plains have 
grasses, interspersed with myrtles and other shrubs.^* 

The forests on the banks of the Paraguay and Vermejo are 
almost as rich as those of the tropics. Noble trees furnish timber 
and fruit ; the algaroba, a kind of acacia, produces clusters of a 
bean, of which the Indians make bread, and also a strong fer- 
mented hquor ; the palm and cinchona grow there ; and the 
yerba-mate, the leaves of which are universally used as tea in 
South America, and were in use before the Spanish conquest. It 
is a species of holly, with leaves five or six inches long. 

The sandy deserts towards the mountains are the land of the 
Agave and Cactus in all their varieties. The fibres of the Agave 
are made into cordage by the Indians for fishing-nets and other 
uses, and the juice affords them drink. Some larger species of 
Cactus give a light and durable wood ; and the Cochineal insect, 
which feeds on them, is a valuable article of commerce. 

Grass, clover, and European and African thistles, which have 
been introduced, with a solitary Ombu at wide intervals, are the 
unvarying features of the pampas ; and thorny stunted bushes, 
characteristic of all deserts, are the only vegetation of the Pata- 
gonian shingle. But on the mountain valleys in the far south 
may be seen the winter's bark, arbutus, new species of beech- 
trees, stunted berberries, and Misodendron, which latter is a sin- 
gular kind of parasitical plant. 

Large forests of Araucaria imbricata grow in the Andes of 
Chile and Patagonia. This tall and handsome pine, which cones 
the size of a child's head, supplies the natives with a great part 
of their food. It is said that the fruit of one large tree will main- 
tain eighteen persons for a year. 

Nothing grows under these great forests ; and when accidentally 
burnt down in the mountainous parts of Patagonia, they never 
rise again, but the ground they grew on is soon covered with an 
impenetrable brushwood of other plants. In Chile the violently 
stinging Loasa appears first in these burnt places, bushes grow 
afterwards, and then comes a tree-grass, 18 feet high, of which 
the Indians make their huts. The new vegetation that follows 
the burning of primeval forests is quite unaccountable. The 
ancient and undisturbed forests of Pennsylvania have no under- 
growth, and when burnt down they are succeeded by a thick 
growth of rhododendrons. 

The southern coasts of Chile are very barren, and all plants, 
existing there, even the herbaceous, have a tendency to assume 

^^ There are innumerable points of analogy between the vegetation 
of the Brazils, equinoctial Africa, and India : but the number of species 
common to these three continents is very small. 
30 



350 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

a hard knotty texture. The stem of the wild potato, which is 
indigenous in Chile and Peru, becomes woody and bristly as it 
grows old. It is a native of the sea-strand, and is never found 
naturally more than 400 feet above it. In its wild state the root 
is small and bitter ; it is one of many instances of the influence of 
cultivation in rendering unpromising plants useful to man. 

It was cultivated in America at the time of its discovery, and 
is so now, at the height of from 9800 to 13,000 feet above the sea 
on the Andes, and as high as 4800 feet on the Swiss Alps ; it does 
not succeed on the plains in hot countries, nor farther north than 
Iceland. It had been introduced into Europe by the Spaniards 
before the time of Sir Walter Raleigh; he brought it to England 
from Virginia in 1586. 

Coca, the Erythroxylon Coca of botanists, is a native of the 
tropical yallej'-s on the eastern declivity of the Andes of Peru and 
Bolivia, where it is extensively cultivated for its leaf, of which 
the tree furnishes 3 or 4 crops annually ; the coca-leaf, which 
possesses nutritive and narcotic qualities, is chewed by the abori- 
gines mixed with an alcaline substance : it allays hunger, and 
enables the Indian to undergo great fatigue without any other 
nourishment for days together ; it is an article of great trade, and 
absolutely indispensable in the more laborious profession of the 
miner. 

Between the southern parallels of 38° and 45° Chile is covered 
with extensive forests. Stately trees of many kinds, having 
smooth and brightly-coloured trunks, are bound together by 
parasitical plants of the monocotyledonous structure ; large and 
elegant ferns are numerous, and arborescent grasses entwine the 
trees to the height of 20 or 30 feet ; palm-trees grow to the 37th 
parallel of latitude, their southern limit. 

Although the flora, at an elevation of 9000 feet on the Chilian 
Andes, is almost identical with that of the Straits of Magellan, yet 
the climate is so mild in some valleys, especially that of Antuco, 
that the vegetation is semi-tropical. In it broad-leaved and bright- 
coloured plants, and the most fragrant and brilliant Orchidese, are 
mixed with the usual alpine genera. Dr. Pceppig says, that 
whatever South Africa or New Holland can boast of in beauty, 
in variety of form, or brilliancy of colour, is rivalled by the flora 
in the highest zone in this part of the Andes, even up to the 
region of perpetual snow ; and, indeed, it bears a strong analogy 
to the vegetation of both these countries. 

The Andes so completely check the migration of plants, that 
almost throughout their whole length there is no mingling of the 
floras on their east and west sides, except at the Isthmus of 
Panama, where the m.ahogan57--tree crosses from the Atlantic to 
the Pacific side, and in the same way many of the plants on the 



ANTARCTIC FLORA. 35l 

lands on the east are brought to the west, and spread to California 
on one side, and as far as the dry plains of Peru on the other.^^ 

The humidity or dryness of the prevailing winds makes an 
immense difference in the character of the countries on each side 
of the Andes. Within the southern tropic the trade-winds come 
loaded with vapour from the Atlantic, which is partly precipitated 
by the mountains of Brazil, and supplies the noble forests of that 
country with never ceasing moisture, while the remainder is con- 
densed by the Andes, so that on their eastern side there is an 
exuberant vegetation, while on the western declivities and in the 
space which separates them from the Pacific they are almost 
barren, and on the plains and in the valleys of Peru, where rain 
very seldom falls, completely so, except where artificial irrigation 
is employed. Even on the eastern side of these mountains the 
richness of the vegetation gradually disappears with the increasing 
height, till at an elevation of about 15,000 feet arborescent plants 
vanish, and alpine races, of the most vivid beauty, succeed ; 
which, in their turn, give place to the grasses at the height of 
16,138 feet. Above these, in the dreary plains of Bombon, and 
other lands of the same altitude, even the thinly-scattered mosses 
are sickly ; and at the height of 21,878 feet the snow-lichen 
forms the last show of vegetable life ; confirming the observation 
of Don Ulloa, that the produce of the soil is the thermometer of 
Peru. 

ANTARCTIC FLORA. 

' Tierra del Fuego and Kerguelen's Land are the northern 
boundary of the antarctic lands, which are scattered round the 
south pole at immense distances from one another. On these the 
vegetation decreases as the latitude increases, till at length utter 
desolation prevails ; not a lichen covers the dreary storm-beaten 
rocks ; and, with the exception of a microscopic marine plant, 
not a sea-weed lives in the gelid waves. In the arctic regions, 
on the contrary, no land has yet been discovered that is entirely 
destitute of vegetable life. This remarkable difference does not 
so much depend on a greater degree of cold in winter as on the 
want of warmth in summer. In the high northern latitudes the 
power of the summer sun is so great as to melt the pitch between 
the planks of the vessels ; while, in corresponding southern lati- 
tudes, Fahrenheit's thermometer does not rise above 14° at noon 
at a season corresponding to our August. The perpetual snow 
comes to a much lower latitude in the southern lands than it 
does in the north. Sandwich Land, in a latitude corresponding 

65 Dr. J. D. Hooker. 



352 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

to that of the north of Scotland, is perpetually covered with many 
fathoms of snow. A single species of grass, the Aira antarctica, 
is the only flowering plant in the South Shetland islands, which 
are no less ice-bound ; and Gockburn Island, one of that group, 
in the 60th parallel, contains the last vestiges of vegetation ; 
while the Namesake islands, in an equally high latitude, to the 
north of Scotland, are inhabited and cultivated ; nay. South 
Georgia, in a latitude similar to that of Yorkshire, is always clad 
in frozen snow, and only produces some mosses, lichens, and 
v^iid burnet ; while Iceland, 10 degrees nearer the pole, has 870 
species, more than half of which are flower-bearing. 

The forest-covered islands of Tierra del Fuego are only 360 
miles from the desolate Shetland group. Such is the difference 
that a few degrees of latitude can produce in these antarctic 
regions, combined with an equable climate and excessive 
humidity. The prevalence of evergreen plants is the most 
characteristic feature in the Fuegian flora. Densely entangled 
forests of winter's bark, and two species of beech-trees, grow 
from the shore to a considerable height on the mountains. Of 
these, the Fagus betuloides, which never loses its brownish-green 
leaves, prevails almost to the exclusion of the evergreen winter's 
bark and the deciduous beech, which is very beautiful. There 
are dwarf species of Arbutus, the Myrtus nummularia, which is 
used instead of tea, besides berberry, currant, and fuchsia ; pecu- 
liar species of Ranunculi, calceolarias, Caryophyllese, cruciform 
plants, and violets. Wild celery and scurvy-grass are the only 
edible plants ; and a bright yellow fungus, which grows on the 
beech-trees, forms a great part of the food of the natives. There 
is a greater number of plants in Tierra del Fuego, either identical 
with those in Great Britain, or representatives of them» than exists 
in any other country in the southern hemisphere. The sea-pink, 
or thrift, the common sloewort, a primula farinosa, and at least 30 
other flowering plants, with almost all the lichens, 48 mosses, 
and many other plants of the cyptogamous kinds, are identically 
the same ; while the number of genera common to both countries 
is still greater, and, though unknown in the intermediate latitudes, 
reappear here. Hermite Island, west from Cape Horn, is a forest- 
land, covered with winter's bark and the Fuegian beeches ; and 
is the most southern spot on earth on which aborescent vegetation 
is found. An alpine flora, many of the species of European 
genera, grows on the mountains, succeeded higher up "by mosses 
and lichens. Mosses are exceedingly plentiful throughout Fuegia ; 
but they abound in Hermite Island more than in any other country, 
and are of singular and beautiful kinds. 

Although the Falkland Islands are in a lower latitude than 
Tierra del Fuego, not a tree is to be seen. The Veronica elliptica, 



ANTARCTIC FLORA. 353 

resembling a myrtle, which is extremely rare, and confined to 
West Falkland, is the only large shrub ; a white-flowering plant 
like the aster, about four feet high, is common ; while a bramble, 
a crowberry, and a myrtle, bearing no resemblance, however, to 
the European species, trail on the ground, and afford edible fruit. 
The balsam bog, or Bolax globaria, and grasses, form the only 
conspicuous feature in the botany of these islands ; and, together 
with rushes and Dactylis csespitosa, or Tussack grass, cover them, 
almost to the exclusion of other plants. The Bolax grows in 
tufted hemispherical masses, of a yellow-green colour, and very 
firm substance, often four feet high, and as many in diameter, 
from whence a strong-smelhng resinous substance exudes, per- 
ceptible at a distance. This plant has umbelhferous flowers, and 
belongs to the carrot order, but forms an antarctic genus quite 
peculiar. 

The Tussack grass is the most useful and the most singular 
plant in this flora. It covers all the small islands of the group, 
like a forest of miniature palm-trees, and thrives best on the 
shores exposed to the spray of the sea. Each tussack is an iso- 
lated plant, occupying about two square yards of ground. It 
forms a hillock of matted roots, rising straight and solitary out of 
the soil, often six feet high and four or five in diameter; from the 
top of which it throws out a thick grassy foliage of blades, six 
feet long, drooping on all sides, and forming, with the leaves of the 
adjacent plants, an arch over the ground beneath, which yields 
shelter to sea-lions, penguins, and petrels. Cattle are exceedingly 
fond of this grass, which yields annually a much greater supply 
of excellent fodder than the same extent of ground would do 
either of common grass or clover. Both the Tussack-grass and 
the Bolax are found, though sparingly, in Tierra del Fuego; 
indeed, the vegetation of the Falkland Islands consists chiefly of 
the mountain plants of that country, and of those that grow on the 
arid plains of Patagonia ; but it is kept close to the ground by 
the fierceness of the terrific gales that sweep over these antarctic 
islands. Peculiar species of European genera are found here, as 
a calceolaria, wood sorrel, and a yellow violet ; while the shep- 
herd's purse, cardamine hirsuta, and the primula farinosa, appear 
to be identical with those at home. In all, there are scarcely 120 
flowering plants, including grasses. Ferns and mosses are feWj 
but lichens are in great variety and abundance, among which 
many are identical with those in Britain. 

In the same hemisphere, far, far removed from the Falkland 
group, the Auckland Islands lie in the boisterous ocean south of 
New Zealand. They are covered with dense and all but im- 
penetrable thickets of stunted trees, or rather shrubs, about 20 or 
SO feet high, gnarled by gales from a stormy sea. There is 
30* 



354 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

nothing analoofous to these shrubs in the northern hemisphere ; 
but the Veronica elliptica, a native of Tierra del Fuego and New 
Zealand, is one of them. Fifteen species of ferns find shelter 
undeir these trees, and their fallen trunks are covered Avith mosses 
and lichens. Eighty flowering plants were found during the stay 
of the discovery ships, of which 56 are new ; and half of the 
whole number are peculiar to this group and to Campbell's 
Island. Some of the most beautiful flowers grow on the moun- 
tains, others are mixed with the ferns in the forests. A beautiful 
plant was discovered, like a purple aster, a Veronica, with large 
spikes of ultramarine colour; a white one, with a perfume like 
jessamine ; a sweet-smelling alpine Hierochloe ; and in some of 
the valleys the fragrant and bright-yellow blossoms of a species 
of asphodel were so abundant that the ground looked hke a carpet 
of gold. A singular plant grows on the sea-shore, having bunches 
of green waxy blossoms the size of a child's head. There are 
also antarctic species of European genera, as beautiful red and 
white gentians, geraniums, &c. The vegetation is characterized 
by an exuberance of the finer flowering plants, and an absence of 
grasses and sedges ; but the landscape, though picturesque, has 
a sombre aspect, from the prevalence of brownish-leaved plants 
of the myrtle tribe. 

Campbell's Island lies 120 miles to the south of the Auckland 
group, and is much smaller, but from the more varied form of its 
surface it is supposed to produce as many species of plants. 
During the two days the discovery ships, under the command of 
Sir James Ross, remained there, between 200 and 300 were col- 
lected, of which 66 were flowering plants, 14 of which were 
peculiar to the country. Many of the Auckland Island plants 
were found here, yet a great change had taken place ; 34 species 
had disappeared and were replaced by 20 new, all peculiar to 
Campbell's Island alone, and some were found that hitherto had 
been supposed to belong to Antarctic America only. In the Auck- 
land group only one-seventh of the plants are common to other 
Antarctic lands, whilst in Campbell's Island a fourth are natives 
of other longitudes in the Antarctic Ocean. The flora of Camp- 
bell's Island and the Auckland group is so intimately allied to 
that of New Zealand, that it may be regarded as the continuation 
of the latter, under an Antarctic character, though destitute of the 
beech and pine trees. There is a considerable number of Fue- 
gian plants in the islands under consideration, though 4000 miles 
distant; and whenever their flora differs in the smaller plants 
from that of New Zealand, it approximates to that of Antarctic 
America : but the trees and shrubs are entirely dissimilar. The 
relation between this vegetation and that of the northern regions 
is but slight. The Auckland group and Campbell's Island are 



CEREALIA. 355 

in a latitude corresponding to that of England, yet only three 
indigenous plants of our island have been found in them, namely, 
the Cardamine hirsuta, Montia, and Callitriche. This is the 
utmost southern limit of tree-ferns. 

Perhaps no spot in either hemisphere, at the same distance 
from the pole, is more barren than Kerguelen Islands, lying in a 
remote part of the south polar ocean. Only 18 species of flower- 
ing plants were found there, which is less than the number in 
Melville Island, in the Arctic Seas, and three times less than the 
number even in Spitzbergen. The whole known vegetation of 
these islands only amounts to 150, including sea-weeds. The 
Pringlea, a kind of cabbage, acceptable to those who have been 
long at sea, is peculiar to the island, and grass, together with a 
plant similar to the Bolax of the Falkland Islands, covers large 
tracts. About 20 mosses, lichens, &c., are only found in these 
islands, but many of the others are also native in the European 
Alps and north polar regions. It is a very remarkable circum- 
stance in the distribution of plants, that there should be so much 
analogy between the floras of places so far apart as Kerguelen 
Islands, the groups south from New Zealand, the Falkland 
Islands, South Georgia, and Tierra del Fuego. 



ORIGIN AND DISTRIBUTION OF CEREALIA. 

The plants which the earth produces spontaneously are thus 
confined within certain districts, and few of them would survive 
a change of circumstances; nevertheless. Providence has endowed 
those most essential to man with a greater flexibility of structure, 
so that the limits of their production can be extended by culture 
beyond what have been assigned to them by nature. The grasses 
yielding the grains are especially favoured in this respect, though 
their extension depends upon the knowledge and industry of 
man ; no grain will be cultivated where it can be procured from 
a foreign market at less expense ; so that with regard to useful 
plants there is an artificial as well as a natural boundary. The 
cultivation of plants in gardens and hot-houses is entirely artificial, 
and depends on luxury and fashion. 

Tartary and Persia are presumed to have been the original 
countries of wheat, rye, and oats ; but these grains have been so 
long in use that it is impossible to trace their origin with certainty. 
Barley grows spontaneously in Tarlary and Sicily, probably of 
different species. Those plants which produce the grains must 
have had a more extended location than any other, and they can 
endure the greatest extremes of heat and cold. In high northern 
latitudes wheat is protected from the inclemency of winter by 



356 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

sowing it in spring, or if sown in autumn a coating of snow 
defends it : the polar limit is the isothermal line of 57° 2', and 
wheat will not form seed within less than 20° or 23° of the equa- 
tor. In America the northern limit is unknown, the country- 
being uninhabited ; but at Cumberland House, in the very middle 
of the continent, one of the stations of the Hudson's Bay Com- 
pany, in 54° N. lat., there are fields of wheat, barley, and maize. 
Wheat thrives luxuriantly in Chile and Rio de la Plata, and at 
elevations of 8500 and 10,000 feet above the sea. It even pro- 
daces grain on the banks of the Lake Titicaca in the Peru-Boli- 
vian Andes at the absolute height of 12,795 feet in sheltered situa- 
tions, and good crops of barley are raised in that elevated region. 

Barley bears cold better than any of the grains, yet neither it 
nor any other will grow in Iceland. It is successfully cultivated 
in the Feroe Islands, near Cape North, the extreme point of 
Norway, near Archangel on the White Sea, and in Central 
Siberia* to between 58° and 59° N. lat. 

Rye is only cultivated where the soil is very poor, and agricul- 
ture little understood, yet a third of the population of Europe 
lives on rye-bread, chiefly inhabitants of the middle and espe- 
cially of the northern parts : its limit is about the 67th parallel 
of N. latitude. 

Oats are scarcely known in middle and southern Europe ; in 
the north they are extensively cultivated to the 65th degree of 
N. latitude. 

Rice is the food of a greater number of human beings than any 
other grain : it has been cultivated from such high antiquity that 
all traces of its origin are lost. It contains a greater proportion 
of nutritious matter than any of the Cereaha, but, since it requires 
excessive moisture, and a temperature of 73° 4' at least, its culti- 
vation is limited to countries between the equator and the 45th 
parallel. 

Indian corn and millet are much cultivated in Europe south of 
the 45lh and 47th parallels, and form an important article of food 
in France, Italy, Africa, India, and America. Buck-wheat is 
extensively cultivated in northern Europe and Siberia and the 
table-lands of central Asia ; it is a native of Asia, from whence it 
was brought into Europe in the 15th century. * 

The cerealia afford one of the most remarkable examples of 
numberless varieties arising from the seed of one species. In 
Ceylon alone there are 160 varieties of rice, and at least 30 of 
Panicum. The endless varieties which may be raised from the 
seed of one plant is most conspicuous in the flower-garden : the 
rose affords above 1400 ; the varieties of the pansy, calceolaria, 
tulip, auricula, and primrose are without end, and often differ so 
much from the parent plant that it seems almost impossible they 



AGES OF TREES. 357 

should have had a common origin : it seems difficult to believe 
that red cabbage, cauHflower, and many others, should have 
sprung from the sea-kale or Brassica oleracea, so totally dis- 
similar from any of them, with its bitter sea-green curly leaves. 
Fashion changes so much with regard to plants that it is scarcely 
possible to form even an approximation to the number known to 
be in cultivation : new plants are introduced from a foreign coun- 
try, and are apt to take the place of some of the older, which are 
neglected and sometimes lost; of 120,000 plants which are known 
to exist on the earth, not more than 15,000 are believed to be in 
cultivation. 

It is supposed that plants capable of bearing a great range of 
temperature would exist through longer geological periods than 
those more limited in their endurance of vicissitudes of tempera- 
ture, and it appears that in many instances at least the existence 
of varieties depends on the life of the plant from whence they 
originated ; the actual duration of individuals is a subject which 
has not been sufficiently studied, though the progress of physio- 
logical botany has given the means of doing so without destroying 
the plant. 

Since forest-trees increase by coatings from without, the growth 
of each year forming a concentric circle of wood round the pith 
or centre of the stem, the age of a tree may be ascertained by 
counting the number of rings in a transverse section of the trunk, 
each ring representing a year. Moreover, the progress of the 
growth is known by comparing the breadth of the rings, which 
are broader in a favourable than in an unfavourable season, 
though this may depend also, in some measure, on the quality of 
the soil which the roots have come to in their downward growth. 
If the number of concentric rings in a transverse section has 
shown the age of a tree, and its girth has been ascertained by 
measurement, an approximation to the age of any other tree of 
the same kind still growing, under similar circumstances, maybe 
determined by comparison. In this way the age of many re- 
markable trees has been ascertained. The yew attains a greater 
age than any other tree in Europe. According to M. De Can- 
doUe this tree increases in girth the twelfth part of an inch in a 
year during the first 150 years, and rather less in the next hun- 
dred, the increase probably decreasing progressively. By that 
estimate a yew at Fountaine Abbey was reckoned by Pennant to 
be 1214 years old ; one at Crowhurst, in Surrey, was 1400 years 
old when measured by Evelyn ; it has been shown by the same 
method that a yew at Fotherngill, in Scotland, was between 2500 
and 2800 years old ; and one at Braburn, in Kent, must have been 
3000 years old : these are the veterans of European vegetation. 
• The cypress rivals the yew in longevity, and may perhaps sur- 
pass it. There is a cypress in the palace garden at Grenada which 



358 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

had been celebrated in the time of the Moors, and was still known 
in the year 1776, as Cipres della Regina Sultana, because a sul- 
tana met with Abencerrages under its shade. Oaks come next in 
order: they are supposed to live 1500 or 1600 years. One in 
Welbec Lane, mentioned by Evelyn, was computated to be 1400 
years old. Chestnut-trees are known to live 900 years ; lime-trees 
have attained 500 or 600 years in France ; and birches are sup- 
posed to be equally durable. Some of the smaller and less con- 
spicuous European plants perhaps rival these giants of the forest 
in age: heaths, and the alpine willow, which covers the ground 
with its leaves, although it is really a subterranean tree spreading 
to a vast distance, are long lived. Ivy is another example of this : 
there is one near Montpellier, six feet in girth, which must be 485 
years old. A lichen was watched for forty years without the 
appearance of change. 

The antiquity of these European vegetables sinks into insignifi- 
cance when compared with the celebrated baobab, or Adansonia 
digitata, in Senegal: taking as a measure the number of concentric 
rings counted on a tranverse incision made for the purpose in the 
trunk of that enormous tree, it was proved to be 5150 years old ; 
yet Baron Humboldt considers a cypress in the garden of Chapul- 
tepec to be still older; it had already reached a great age when 
Montezuma v/as on the throne of Mexico, in 1520. These two 
trees are probably the most aged organized beings on the face of 
the earth. Eight olive-trees on the Mount of Olives are supposed 
to be 800 years old ; it is at least certain that they existed prior to 
the taking of Jerusalem by the Turks. There is some doubt as to 
the age of the largest cedar on Lebanon ; it is nine feet in diameter, 
and has probably existed 800 or 900 years. There are two cedar- 
trees in the Botanic Garden at Chelsea which were mentioned 600 
years ago. 

The age of palms and other monocotyledonous plants is ascer- 
tained by a comparison of their height with the time which each 
kind takes to grow. M. De Candolle thus estimates that the Cocos 
oleracea, or cabbage-palms, may Uve 600 or 700 years, while the 
cocoa-nut palm lives from 80 to 380 years. 

Mr. Babbage has made an approximation to the age of peat- 
mosses from the concentric rinsfs of the trees found in them. 



MARINE TEGETATION. 

A vegetable world lies hid beneath the surface of the ocean, 
altogether unhke that on land, and existing under circumstances 
totally different with regard to light, heat, and pressure, yet sus- 
tained by the same means. Carbonic acid and ammonia are as 
essential, and metallic oxides are as indispensable, to marine vege- 



MARINE VEGETATION. 359 

tation as they are to land-plants. Sea-water contains ammonia, 
and something more than a twelve-thousandth part of its weight 
of carbonate of lime, yet that minute portion is sufficient to sup- 
ply all the shell-fish and coral-insects in the sea with materials for 
their habitations, as well as food for vegetation. Marine plants 
are more expert chemists than we are, for the v/ater of the ocean 
contains rather less than a millionth part of its weight of iodine, 
which they collect in quantities impossible for us to obtain other- 
wise than from their ashes. 

Sea-weeds fix their roots to anything — to stone, wood, and to 
other sea-weeds : they must, therefore, derive all their nourishment 
from the water, and the air it contains : and the vital force or che- 
mical energy by which they decompose and assimilate the sub- 
stances fit for their maintenance is the sun's light. 

Marine plants, which are very numerous, consist of two groups 
— a jointed kind, which include the Confervas, or plants having a 
thread-like form ; and a jointless kind, to which belong dulse, laver, 
the kinds used for making kelp, vegetable glue, iodine, that in the 
Indian Archipelago, of which the sea-swallows make their edible 
nests, and all the gigantic species which grow in submarine forests, 
or float like green meadows in the open sea. Flower-bearing sea- 
weeds are very limited in their range, which depends upon the 
depth of water and the nature of the coasts; but the cryptogamic 
kinds are widely dispersed, some species are even found in every 
climate from pole to pole. No doubt the polar currents at the sur- 
face, and the stratum of uniform temperature lower down, are the 
highways by which these cosmopolites travel."^" 

There are fewer vegetable provinces in the seas than on land, 
because the temperature is more uniform, and the dispersion of 
the plants is not so much interfered with by the various causes 
which disturb it on land.^'' 

Marine vegetation varies both horizontally and vertically with 
the depth, and it seems to be a general law throughout the ocean 

^^ The cosmopolite ulvse are the Enteromorpha, Codium, &c. 

^■^ Dr. J. D. Hooker has divided the marine vegetation into ten pro- 
vinces: — the Northern Ocean, from the pole to the 60th parallel of north 
latitude; — ^the North Atlantic, between the 60th and 40th parallels, which 
is the province of the delessarios and fucus proper; — the Mediterranean, 
which is a sub-region of the warmer temperate zone of the Atlantic, 
lying between the 40th and 23d northern parallels; — the tropical Atlan- 
tic, in which sargassum, rhodomelia, corallinia, and siphinea abound; 
— the antarctic American region, from Chile to Cape Horn, the Falkland 
Islands, and the whoJe circurnpolar ocean south of the 50th southern 
parallel; — the Australian and New Zealand province, which is very 
peculiar, being characterized, among other generic forms, by cystosei- 
riae and fuceae ; — the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea; — and the last, which 
comprises the Japan and China Seas. There are several undetermined 
botanical marine provinces in the Pacific and elsewhere. 



360 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

that the light of the sun and vegetation end together ; it conse- 
quently depends on the power of the sun and the transparency of 
the water ; so different kinds of sea-weeds affect different depths, 
where the weight of the water, the quantity of light and heat, suit 
them best. One great marine zone lies between the high and low 
water marks, and varies in species with the nature of the coasts, 
but exhibits similar phenomena throughout the northern hemi- 
sphere. In the British seas, where, with two exceptions, the 
whole flora is cry ptogamic,'''^ this zone does not extend deeper than 
80 fathoms, but is divided into two distinct provinces, one to the 
south and another to the north. The former includes the southern 
and eastern coasts of England, the southern and western coasts of 
Ireland, and both the channels ; while the northern flora is con- 
fined to the Scottish seas and the adjacent coasts of England and 
Ireland. The second British zone begins at low-water mark, and 
extends below it to a depth from 7 to 15 fathoms. It contains the 
great tangle sea- weeds, growing in miniature forests, mixed with 
fuci, and is the abode of a host of animals. A coral-like sea-weed 
is the last plant of this zone, and the lowest in these seas, where 
it does not extend below the depth of 60 fathoms, but in the Medi- 
terranean it is found at 70 or 80 fathoms, and is the lowest plant 
in that sea. The same law prevails in the Bay of Biscay, where 
one set of sea-weeds is never found lower than 20 feet below the 
surface; another only in the zone between the depths of 5 and 30 
feet ; and another between 15 and 35 feet. In these two last zones 
they are most numerous; at a greater depth the kinds continue to 
vary, but their numbers decrease. The seeds of each kind float 
at the depth most genial to the future plant; they must therefore 
be of different ^veights. The distribution in the Egean Sea was 
found by Professor E. Forbes to be perfectly similar, only that the 
vegetation is different, and extends to a greater depth in the Medi- 
terranean than in more northern seas.^^ He also observed that 

^^ The British flowering sea-weeds are the Zostera and Zanichellia. 

^^ The vegetation at different depths in the Egean Sea is as distinctly 
marked as that at different heights on the declivity of a mountain. The 
coast plants are the Padina pavonia and Dictyota dichotoma. A greater 
depth is characterized by the vividly green and elegant fronds of the 
Caulerpa prolifera, probably the prasium of the ancients; associated 
with it are the curious sponge-like Codium Bursa, and four or five others. 
The Codium flabelliforme, and the rare and curious vegetable net called 
Microdictyon umbilicatum, characterize depths of 30 fathoms. The 
Dictyomenia, with stiff purple corkscrew-like fronds, and some others, 
go as low as 50 fathoms, beyond which no flexible sea-weeds have been 
found. The coral-like Millepora polymorpha take their place, and range 
to the depth of 100 fathoms, beyond which there is no trace of vegeta- 
ble life, unless some of the minute and microscopic infusorial bodies 
living there be regarded as plants. — "Travels in Lycia," by Lieutenant 
Spratt, R. N., and Professor E. Forbes. 



MARINE VEGETATION. 361 

sea-weeds growing near the surface are more limited in their dis- 
tribution than those that grow lower down, and that with regard 
to vegetation depth corresponds with latitude, as height does on 
land. Thus, the flora at great depths, in warm seas, is represented 
by kindred forms in higher latitudes. There is every reason to 
believe that the same laws of distribution prevail throughout the 
ocean and every sea. 

Sea-weeds adhere firmly to the rocks before their fructification, 
but they are easily detached afterwards, which accounts for some 
of the vast fields of floating w^eeds ; but others, of gigantic size 
and wide distribution, are supposed to grow unattached in the water 
itself. There are permanent bands of sea-weed in our British 
Channel and in the North Sea, of the kind called Fucus Filum, 
which grow abundantly on the western coasts of the Channel, and 
they lie in the direction of the currents, in beds 15 or 20 miles 
long, and not more than 600 feet wide. These bands must oscil- 
late with the tides between two corresponding zones of rest, one 
at the turn of the flood, and the other at the turn of the ebb. It 
is doubtful whether the Fucus natans or Sargassum bacciferum 
grows on rocks at the bottom of the Atlantic, between the parallels 
of 40° north and south of the equator, and, when detached, is drifted 
uniformly to particular spots which never vary, or whether it is 
propagated and grows in the water ; but the mass of that plant, 
west of the Azores, occupies an area equal to that of France, and 
has not changed its place since the time of Columbus. Fields of 
the same kind cover the sea at the Bahama Islands and other 
places, and two new species of it were discovered in the Antarctic 
seas. 

The Macrocystis pyrifera and the Laminaria radiata are the 
most remarkable of marine plants for their gigantic size and the 
extent of their range. They were met with on the Antarctic 
coasts two degrees nearer the south pole than any other vegetable 
production, forming, with one remarkable exception, the utmost 
limit of vegetable life in the south polar seas. The Macrocystis 
pyrifera exists in vast detached masses, like green meadows, in 
every latitude from the south polar ocean to the 45th degree N. 
lat. in the Atlantic, and to the shores of California in the Pacific, 
where there are fields of it so impenetrable, that it has saved ves- 
sels driven by the heavy swell towards that shore from shipwreck. 
It is never seen where the temperature of the water is at the freez- 
ing point, and is the largest of the vegetable tribe, being occasionally 
300 or 400 feet long. The Laminaria abounds off the Cape of 
Good Hope and in the Antarctic Ocean. These two species form 
great part of a band of sea-weed that girds Kerguelen Islands so 
densely, that a boat can scarcely be pulled through it ; and they 
are found in great abundance on the coasts of the Falkland group, 
31 



362 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

and alse in vast fields in the open sea, hundreds of miles from any 
land: had it ever grown on the distant shores, it must have taken 
ages to travel so far, drifted by the wind, currents, and the sand 
of the seas. The red, green, and purple lavers of Great Britain 
are found on the coasts of the Falkland Islands ; and, though some 
of the northern weeds are not found in the intervening warm seas, 
they reappear here. The Lessonia is the most remarkable marine 
plant in this group of islands. Its stems, much thicker than a 
man's leg, and from 8 to 10 feet long, fix themselves by clasping 
fibres to the rocks beyond the high-water mark. Many branches 
shoot upwards from these stems, from which long leaves droop 
into the water like willows. There are immense submarine forests 
off Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, attached to the rocks at the 
bottom. These plants are so strong and buoyant, that they bring 
up large masses of stone; and, as they grow slanting, and stretch 
along the surface of the sea, they are sometimes 300 feet long. 
The quantity of living creatures which inhabit these marine forests 
and the parasitical weeds attached to them is inconceivable, they 
absolutely teem with life. Of the species of marine plants which 
are strictly antarctic, including those in the seas of Van Diemen's 
Land and New Zealand, Dr. Hooker has identified one-fifth with 
the British Algee. 

The high latitudes of the Antarctic Ocean are not so destitute 
of vegetation as was at first believed. Most minute objects, alto- 
gether invisible to the naked eye, except in mass, and which were 
taken for siliceous shelled animalcules of the infusoria kind, prove 
to be vegetable. They are a species of the Diatomacese, which, 
from their multitudes, give the sea a pale ochreous brown colour. 
They increase in numbers with the latitude, up to the highest 
point yet attained by man, and, no doubt, afford the supply of food 
to many of the minute animals in the antarctic seas. Genera 
and species of this plant exist in every sea from Victoria Land to 
Spitzbergen. It is one of the remarkable instances of a great end 
being effected by small means ; for the death of this antarctic 
vegetation is forming a submarine bank between the 76th and 
78th parallels of south latitude, and from the 165th to the 160th 
western meridian. 

Great patches of Confervse are occasionally met with in the 
high seas. Bands several miles long, of a reddish-brown species, 
like chopped hay, occur off Bahia, on the coast of Brazil ; the 
same plant is said to have given the name to the Red Sea ; and 
different species are common in the Australian seas. 



DISTRIBUTION OF INSECTS. 363 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

Distribution of Insects. 



Three hundred thousand insects are known : some with wings, 
others without ; some are aquatic, others are aquatic only in the 
first stage of their existence, and many are parasitical. Some 
land insects are carnivorous, others feed on vegetables ; some of 
the carnivorous tribe live on dead, others on living animals, but 
they are not half so numerous as those that live on vegetables. 
Some change as they are developed ; in their first stage they eat 
animal food, and vegetables when they come to maturity. 

Insects maintain the balance among the species of the vege- 
table creation by preventing the tendency that plants have to 
encroach on one another. The stronger would extirpate the 
weaker, and the larger would destroy the smaller, were it not 
checked by insects which live on vegetables. On the other hand, 
many plants would be extirpated by insects were these not 
devoured by other insects and spiders. 

Of the 8000 or 9000 British insects the greatest part are car- 
nivorous, and therefore keep the others within due bounds. 

Insects increase in kinds and in numbers from the poles to the 
equator: in a residence of 11 months in Melville Island, Sir 
Edward Parry found only 6 species, because lichens and mosses 
do not afford nourishment for the insect tribes, though it is pro- 
bable that every other kind of plant gives food and shelter to 
more than one species ; it is even said that 40 difTerent insects 
are quartered upon the common nettle. 

The increase of insects from the poles to the equator does not 
take place at the same time everywhere. The polar regions and 
New Holland have very few specifically and individually ; they 
are more abundant in Northern Africa, Chile, and in the plains 
west of the Brazils ; North America has fewer species than 
Europe in the same latitude, and Asia has few varieties of spe- 
cies in propertion to its size ; Caffraria, the African and Indian 
islands, possess nearly the same number of species ; but by far 
the richest of all, both in species and numbers, are central and 
intertropical America. Beetles are an exception to the law of 
increase towards the equator, as they are infinitely more numer- 
ous in species in the temperate regions of the northern hemi- 
sphere than in equatorial countries. The location of insects 
depends upon that of the plants which yield their food ; and, as 
almost each plant is peopled with inhabitants peculiar to itself, 



364 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

insects are distributed over the eartli in the same manner as vege- 
tables ; the groups, consequently, are often confined within narrow 
limits, and it is extraordinary that, notwithstanding their powers of 
locomotion, they often remain within a particular compass, though 
the plants, and all other circumstances in their immediate vicinity, 
appear equally favourable for their habitation. 

The insects of eastern Asia and China are different from those 
in Europe and Africa ; those in the United States differ specifi- 
cally from the British, though they often approach very near; 
and in South America the equinoctial districts of New Grenada 
and Peru have distinct groups from those in Guiana. 

Though insects are distributed in certain limited groups, yet 
most of the families have representatives in all the great regions 
of the globe, and some identical species are inhabitants of coun- 
tries far from one another. The Vanessa Cardui, or " Painted 
Lady Butterfly," is found in all the four quarters of the globe and 
in Australia ; and one, which never could have been conveyed 
by man, is native in southern Europe, the coast of Barbary, and 
Chile. It is evident from these circumstances that not only each 
group, but also each particular species, must have been originally 
created in the places they now inhabit. 

Mountain-chains are a complete barrier to insects, even more 
so than rivers : not only lofty mountains like the Andes divide 
the kinds, but they are even different on the two sides of the Col 
de Tende in the Alps. Each soil has kinds pecuHar to itself, 
whether dry or moist, cultivated or wild, meadow or forest. 
Stagnant water and marshes are generally full of them ; some 
live in water, some run on its surface, and every water-plant > 
affords food and shelter to many different kinds. The east wind 
seems to have considerable effect in bringing the insect or in 
developing the eggs of certain species ; for example, the aphis, 
known as the blight in our country, lodges in myriads on plants, 
and shrivels up their leaves after a continued east wind. They 
are almost as destructive as the locust, and sometimes darken the 
air by their numbers. Caterpillars are also very destructive ; the 
caterpillar of the Y moth would soon ruin the vegetation of a 
country were it not a prey to some other. Insects sornetimes 
multiply suddenly to an enormous extent, and decrease as rapidly 
and as unaccountably. 

Temperature, by its influence on vegetation, has an indirect 
effect on the insects that are to feed upon plants, and extremes of 
heat and cold have more influence on their locahty than the mean 
annual temperature. Thus, in the polar regions the mosquito 
tribes are more numerous and more annoying than in temperate 
countries, because they pass their early stages of existence in 
water, which shelters them, and the short but hot summer is 
genial to their brief span of life. 



DISTRIBUTION OF INSECTS. 365 

In some instances height corresponds with latitude. The Par- 
nassius Apollo, a butterfly native in the plains of Sweden, is also 
found in the Alps, the Pyrenees, and a closely-aUied species in 
the Himalaya. The Parnassius Smyntheus, true to the habitat 
of the genus, has recently been found on the Rocky Mountains of 
North America. Some insects require several years to arrive at 
their perfect state ; they lie buried in the ground in the form of 
grubs : the cock-chafer comes to maturity in 3 years, and some 
American species require a much longer time. 

Insects do not attain their perfect state till the plants they are 
to feed upon are ready for them. Hence, in cold and temperate 
climates their appearance is simultaneous with vegetation ; and 
as the rainy and dry seasons within the tropics correspond to our 
winter and summer, insects appear there after the rains, and 
vanish in the heat : the rains, if too violent, destroy them ; and 
in countries where that occurs, there are two periods in the year 
in which they are most abundant — one before and one after the 
rains. It is also observed in Europe that insects decrease in the 
heat of summer, and become more numerous in autumn : the 
heat is thought to throw some into a state of torpor, but the 
greater number perish. 

It is not known that any insect depends entirely upon only 
one species of plant for its existence, or whether it may not have 
recourse to congeners should its habitual plant perish. When 
particular species of plants of the same family occur in places 
widely apart, insects of the same genus will be found on them, 
so that the existence of the plant may often be inferred from that 
of the insect, and, in several instances, the converse. 

When a plant is taken from one country to another in which 
it has no congeners, it is not attacked by the insects of the 
country : thus, pur cabbages and carrots in Cayenne are not 
injured by the insects of that country, and the tulip-tree and 
other magnolias are not molested by our insects ; but if a plant 
has congeners in its new country, the inhabitants will soon find 
their way to the stranger. 

The common fly is one of the most universal of insects, yet it 
was unknown in some of the South Sea islands till it was carried 
there by ships from Europe, and it has now become a plague. 

The mosquito and culcx are spread over the world more gener- 
ally than any other tribe ; they are the torment of men and 
animals from the poles to the equator by night and by day : the 
species are numerous, and their location partial. In the Arctic 
regions the Culex Pipiens, which passes two-thirds of its exist- 
ence in water, swarms in summer in myriads : the lake Myvatr, 
in Iceland, has its name from the legions of these tormentors that 
cover its surface. They are less numerous in central Europe, 
31* 



366 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

though one species of mosquito, the Simulium columbaschense, 
which is very small, appears in such clouds in parts of Hungary, 
especially the Bannat of Teraeswar,that it is not possible to breathe 
without swallowing many : even cattle and children have died 
from them. In Lapland there is a plague of the same kind. Of 
all places on earth the Orinoco and other great rivers of tropical 
America are the most obnoxious to this plague. The account 
given by Baron Humboldt is really fearful : at no season of the 
year, at no hour of the day or night, can rest be found ; whole 
districts in the upper Orinoco are deserted on account of these 
insects. Different species follow one another with such preci- 
sion, that the time of day or night may be known accurately from 
their humming noise, and from the different sensations of pain 
which the different poisons produce. The only respite is the 
interval of a few minutes between the departure of one gang and 
the arrival of their successors, for the species do not mix. On some 
parts of the Orinoco the air is one dense cloud of poisonous insects 
to the height of 20 feet. It is singular that they do not infest rivers 
that have black water, and each white stream is peopled with its 
own kinds; though ravenous for blood, they can live without it, 
as they are found where no animals exist. 

In Brazil the quantity of insects is so great in the woods, that 
their noise is heard in a ship at anchor some distance from the 
shore. 

Various genera of butterflies and moths are very limited in 
their habitations, others are dispersed over the world, but the 
species are almost always different. Bees and wasps are equally 
universal, yet each country has its own. The common honey-bee 
is the only European insect directly useful to man ; it was intro- 
duced into North America not many years ago, and is now spread 
over the continent : it is now naturalized in Van Diemen's Land 
and New Zealand. European bees, of which there are many 
species, generally have stings ; the Australian bee, like a black 
fly, is without a sting; and in Brazil there are 30 species of 
stingless bees. 

Fire-flies are mostly tropical, yet there are four species in 
Europe ; in South America there are three species, and so brilhant 
that their pale green light is seen at the distance of 200 paces. 

The silkworm comes from China, and the cochineal insect is a 
native of tropical America: there are many species of it in other 
countries. The Coccus Lacca is Indian, the Coccus IHcis lives in 
Italy, and there is one in Poland, but neither of these have been 
cultivated. 

Scorpions under various forms are in all warm climates ; 2 or 
3 species are peculiar to Europe, but they are small in comparison 
with those in tropical countries : one in Brazil is six inches long. 



DISTRIBUTION OF INSECTS. 367 

As in mosquitos, the poison of the same species is more active in 
some situations than in others. At Cumana the sting of the scor- 
pion is httJe feared, while that of the same species in Carthagena 
causes loss of speech for many days. 

Ants, Formicidse (Hymenoptera), are universally distributed, 
but of different kinds. Near great rivers they build their nests 
above the hne of the annual inundations. The insects called 
white ants, belonging to a different genus and family Termitidee 
(Neuroptera), are so destructive in South America, that Baron 
Humboldt says there is not a manuscript in that country a hundred 
years old. 

There are upwards of 1200 species of spiders and their allies 
known; each country has its own, varying in size, colour, and 
habits, from the huge bird-catching spider of South America, to 
the almost invisible European gossamer floating in the air on its 
silvery thread. Many of this ferocious family are aquatic ; and 
spiders, with some other insects, are said to be the first inhabitants 
of new islands. 

The migration of insects is one of the most curious circum- 
stances relating to them : they sometimes appear in great flights 
in places where they never were seen before, and they continue 
their course with perseverance which nothing can check. This 
has been observed in the migration of crawling insects : caterpil- 
lars have attempted to cross a stream. Countries near deserts 
are most exposed to the invasion of locusts, which deposit their 
eggs in the sand, and, when the young are hatched by the sun's 
heat, they emerge from the ground without wings ; but as soon 
as they attain maturity, they obey the impulse of the first wind, 
and fly, under the guidance of a leader, in a mass, whose front 
keeps a straight line, so dense that it forms a cloud in the air, and 
the sound of their wings is like the murmur of the distant sea. 
They take immense flights, crossing the Mozambique Channel 
from Africa to Madagascar, which is 120 miles broad: they come 
from Barbary to Italy, and a few have been seen in Scotland. 
Even the wandering tribes of locusts differ in species in different 
deserts, following the universal law of organized nature. Insects, 
not habitually migratory, sometimes migrate in great flocks. In 
1847 lady-birds or coccinellae and the bean aphis arrived in im- 
mense multitudes at Ramsgate and Margate from the continent, 
in fine calm weather, and a mass of the Vanessa cardui flew over 
a district in a column from 10 to 15 yards wide, for 2 hours suc- 
cessively. Why these butterflies should simultaneously take 
wing in a flock is unaccountable, for had it been for want of food 
they would probably have separated in quest of it. In 1847 the 
cabbage butterfly came in a mass from the coast of France to 
England. Dragon-flies migrate in a similar manner. Professor 



368 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

Ehrenberg has discovered a new world of creatures in the Infuso- 
ria, so minute that they are invisible to the naked eye. He found 
them, in fog, rain, and snow, in the ocean, in stagnant water, in 
animal and vegetable juices, in volcanic ashes and pumice, in 
opal, in the dusty air that sometimes falls on the ocean ; and he 
detected 18 species 20 feet below the surface of the ground in 
peat-earth, which was full of microscopic live animals: they exist 
in ice, and are not killed by boiling water. This lowest order of 
animal life is much more abundant than any other, and new spe- 
cies are found every day. Magnified, some of them seem to 
consist of a transparent vesicle, and some have a tail: they move 
with great alacrity, and show intelligence by avoiding obstacles in 
their course : others have siliceous shells. Language, and even 
imagination, fails in the attempt to describe the inconceivable 
myriads of these invisible inhabitants of the ocean, the air, and 
the earth: they no doubt become the prey of larger creatures, 
and perhaps bloodsucking insects may have recourse to them 
when other prey is wanting. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 



Distribution of Marine Animals in s'eneral — Fishes — the Marine Mam 



malia-^PhocsBp Dolphins^ and Whales. 

Before Sir James Ross's voyage to the Antarctic regions, the 
profound and dark abysses of the ocean were supposed to be 
entirely destitute of animal life; now it may be presumed that no 
part of it is uninhabited, since during that expedition live creatures 
were fished up from a depth of 6000 feet. But as most of the 
larger fish usually frequent shallow water near the coasts, deep 
seas must form barriers as impassable to the greater number of 
them as mountains do to land animals. The polar, the equatorial 
ocean, and the inland seas, have each their own particular in- 
habitants ; almost all the species and some of the genera of the 
marine creation are different in the two hemispheres, and even in 
each particular sea; and under similar circumstances the species 
are for the most part representative, though not the same. Iden- 
tity of species, however, does occur, even at the two extremities 
of the globe, for living animals were brought up from the profound 
depths of the Antarctic Ocean which Sir James Ross recognized 
to be the very same species which he had often met with in the 
Arctic seas. "The only way they could have got from the one 
pole to the other must have been through the tropics; but the 



MARINE INSECTS. 369 

temperature of the sea in these regions is such that they could 
not exist in it unless at a depth of nearly 2000 fathoms. At that 
depth they might pass from the Arctic to the Antarctic Ocean 
without a variation of 5 degrees of temperature ; whilst any land 
animal, at the most favourable season, must experience a difference 
of 50 degrees, and, if in winter, no less than 150 degrees of Fah- 
renheit's thermometer;" — a strong presumption that marine crea- 
tures can exist at the depth and under the enormous pressure of 
12,000 feet of water. The stratum of constant temperature in 
the ocean may indeed afford the means of migration from pole to 
pole to those which live in shallower water, as they would only 
have to descend to a depth of 7200 feet at the equator. The 
great currents, no doubt, offer paths for fish without any sudden 
change of temperature : the inhabitants of the Antarctic Sea may 
come to the coasts of Chile and Peru by the cold stream that flows 
along them from the south polar ocean, and, on the contrary, 
tropical fish may travel by the Gulf-stream to the middle and high 
latitudes in the Atlantic, but few will leave either one or other to 
inhabit the adjacent seas, on account of the difference of heat. 
Nevertheless, quantities of medusae or sea-nettles are brought by 
the Gulf-stream to feed the whales at the Azores, though the 
whales themselves never enter the stream, on account of its 
warmth. 

The form and nature of the coasts have great influence on the 
distribution of fishes ; when they are uniformly of the same geo- 
logical structure, so as to afford the same food and shelter, the fish 
are similar. Their distribution is also determined by climate, the 
depth of the sea, the nature of the bottom, and the influx of fresh 
water. 

The ocean, the most varied and most wonderful part of the crea- 
tion, absolutely teems with life : " things innumerable, both great 
and small, are there." The forms are not to be numbered even 
of those within our reach ; jret, numerous as they are, few have 
been found exempt from the laws of geographical distribution. 

The discoloured portions of the ocean generally owe the tints 
they assume to myriads of insects. In the Arctic seas, where 
the water is pure transparent ultramarine colour, parts of 20 or 
30 square miles, 1500 feet deep, are green and turbid from the 
quantity of minute animalcules. Captain Scoresby calculated 
that it would require 80,000 persons, working unceasingly from 
the creation of man to the present day, to count the number of 
insects contained in 2 miles of the green water. What, then, 
must be the amount of animal life in the polar regions, where 
one-fourth part of the Greenland Sea, for 10 degrees of latitude, 
consists of that water! These animalcules are of the medusa 
tribe, mixed with others that are monihform. Some medusae are 



370 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

very large, floating like jelly ; and although apparently carried at 
random by the waves, each species has its definite location, and 
even organs of locomotion. One species comes in spring from 
the Greenland seas to the coast of Holland ; and Baron Humboldt 
met with an immense shoal of them in the Atlantic, migrating at 
a rapid rate. 

Dr. Poeppig mentions a stratum of red water near Cape Pilares, 
24 miles long and 7 broad, which, seen from the mast-head, ap- 
peared dark-red, but on proceeding it became a brilliant purple, 
and the wake of the vessel was rose-colour. The water was per- 
fectly transparent, but small red dots could be discerned moving 
in spiral lines. The vermiHon sea off California is no doubt 
owing to a similar cause, as Mr. Darwin found red and chocolate- 
coloured water on the coast of Chile over spaces of several square 
miles full of microscopic animalcules, darting about in every 
direction, and sometimes exploding. Infusoria are not confined 
to fresh water; the bottom of the sea swarms with them. Sili- 
ceous-coated infusoria are found in the mud of the coral islands 
under the equator; and 68 species were discovered in the mud in 
Erebus Bay, near the Antarctic pole. These minute forms of 
organized being, invisible to the naked eye, are intensely and 
extensively developed in both of the polar oceans, and serve for 
food to tlie higher orders of fish in latitudes beyond the limits of 
the larger vegetation, though they themselves probably live on 
the microscopic plant already mentioned, which abounds in all 
seas. Some are peculiar to each of the polar seas, some are com- 
mon to both, and a few are distributed extensively throughout the 
ocean. 

The enormous prodigality of animal life supplies the place of 
vegetation, so scanty in the ocean in comparison with that which 
clothes the land, and which probably would be insufficient for the 
supply of the marine creation, were the deficiency not made up 
by the superabundant land vegetation and insects carried to the 
sea by rivers. The fish that live on sea-weed must bear a smaller 
proportion to those that are predacious than the herbivorous land 
animals do to the carnivorous. Fish certainly are most voracious ; 
none are without their enemies ; they prey and are preyed upon ; 
and there are two which devour even the live coral, hard as its 
coating is ; nor does the coat of mail of shell-fish protect them. 
Whatever the proportion may be which predatory fish bear to 
herbivorous, the quantity of both must be enormous, for, besides 
the infusoria, the great forests of fuci and sea-weed are everywhere 
a mass of infinitely varied forms of being, either parasitical, feeding 
on them, seeking shelter among them, or in pursuit of others. 

The observations of Professor E. Forbes in the Egean Sea show 
that depth has great influence in the geographical distribution of 



MARINE INFUSORIA. 371 

marine animals. From the surface to the depth of 230 fathoms 
their are eight distinct regions in that sea, each of which has its 
own vegetation and inhabitants. The number of shell-fish and 
other marine animals is greater specifically and individually 
between the surface and the depth of 2 fathoms than in all the 
regions below taken together, and both decrease downwards to 
the depth of 105 fathoms ; between which and the depth of 230 
only eight shells were found ; and animal life ceases in that part 
of the Mediterranean at 300 fathoms. The changes in the dif- 
ferent zones are not abrupt ; some of the creatures of an under 
region always appear before those of the region above vanish ; 
and although there are a few species the same in some of the 
eight zones, only two are common to all. Those near the surface 
have forms and colours belonging to the inhabitants of southern 
latitudes, while those lower down are analogous to the animals of 
northern seas ; so that in the sea depth corresponds with latitude, 
as height does on land. Moreover, the extent of the geographical 
distribution of any species is proportional to the depth at which 
it lives; consequently, those living near the surface are less 
widely dispersed than those inhabiting deep water. Professor 
Forbes also discovered several shells living in the Mediterranean 
that have hitherto only been known as fossils of the tertiary 
strata ; and also that the species least abundant as fossils are 
most numerous alive, and the converse ; hence, the former are 
near their maximum, while the latter are approaching to extinc- 
tion. These very important experiments, it is true, were con- 
fined to the Mediterranean; but analogous results have been 
obtained in the Bay of Biscay and in the British seas. There 
are four zones of depth in our seas, each of which has its own 
inhabitants, consisting of shell-fish, crustaccce, corallines and other 
marine creatures. The first zone lies between high and low-water 
marks, consequently it is shallow in some places and 30 feet deep in 
others. In all parts of the northern hemisphere it presents the 
same phenomena ; but the animals vary with the nature of the 
coast, according as it is of rock, gravel, sand, or mud. In the 
British seas the animals of this littoral or coast zone are distributed 
in three groups that differ decidedly from one another, though 
many are common to all. One occupies the seas on the southern 
shores of our islands and both channels ; a middle group has its 
centre in the Irish seas ; and the third is confined to the Scottish 
seas, and the adjacent coasts of England and Ireland. The 
second zone extends from the low-water mark to a depth below 
it of from 7 to 15 fathoms, and is crowded with animals living on 
and among the sea-weeds, as radiated animals, shell-fish, and 
many zoophites. In the third zone, which is below that of vege- 
table life, marine animals are more numerous and of greater 



372 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

variety than in any other. It is particularly distinguished by 
arborescent creatures, that seem to take the place of plants, car- 
nivorous mollusca, together with large and peculiar radiata. It 
ranges from the depth of 15 to 50 fathoms. The last zone is the 
region of stronger corals, pecuhar mollusca, and of others that 
only inhabit deep water. This zone extends to the depth of 100 
fathoms or more. 

Except in the Antarctic seas, the superior zone of shell-fish is 
the only one of which anything is known in the great oceans, 
which have numerous special provinces. Many, like the harp, 
are tropical ; others, as the nautilus and the pearl-oyster, are 
nearly so ; the latter abounds throughout the Persian Gulf and 
on the coasts of Borneo and Ceylon, which are thought to pro- 
duce the finest pearls. There are many also in the Caribbean 
Sea, and in the Pacific, and especially in the Bay of Panama, 
but whether the species are different is not known. Some shells 
are exceedingly limited in their distribution, as the Haliotis 
gigantea, which is peculiar to the sea of Van Diemen's Land. 

According to Sir Charles Lyell, nearly all the species of mol- 
luscous animals in the seas of the two temperate zones are dis- 
tinct, yet the whole species in one bears a strong analogy to that 
in the other; both differ widely from those in the tropical and 
arctic oceans ; and, under the same latitude, species vary with 
the longitude. The east and west coasts of tropical America 
have only one shell-fish in common ; and those of both differ 
from the shell-fish in the islands of the Pacific and the Galapagos 
Archipelago, which forms a distinct region. Notwithstanding 
the many definite marine provinces, the same species are occa- 
sionally found in regions widely separated. A few of the shell- 
fish of the Galapagos Archipelago are the same with those of the 
Philippine islands, though so far apart. The east coast of Ame- 
rica, which is poor in shell-fish, has a considerable number in 
common with the coasts of Europe. 

The Cyprsea moneta lives in the Mediterranean, the seas of 
South Africa, the Mauritius, the East Indies, China, and the 
South Seas even to Otaheite; and the Janthina frangilis, the 
animal of which is of a beautiful violet-colour, floats on the sur- 
face in every tropical and temperate sea. Mollusca have a greater 
power of locomotion than is generally believed. Some migrate 
in their larva state, being furnished with lobes which enable them 
to swim freely. The larva of the scalop is capable of migrating 
to distant regions ; the argonauta spreads its sail and swims along 
the surface. 

The numerous species of Zoophytes which construct the ex- 
tensive coral banks and atolls are chiefly confined to the tropical 
seas of Polynesia, the East and West Indies : the family is repre- 



PROVINCES OF MARINE LIFE. 373 

sented by a very few species in our seas, and in the Mediterranean, 
they are smaller and different, generally, from those in the torrid 
zone. 

The larger and more active inhabitants of the waters obey the 
same laws with the rest of the creation, though the provinces are 
in some instances very extensive. Dr. Richardson observes that 
there is one vast province in the Pacific, extending 42 degrees on 
each side of the equator, between the meridians including Aus- 
tralia, New Zealand, the Malay Archipelago, China, and Japan, 
in which the genera are the same ; but at its extremities the 
Arctic and Antarctic genera are mingled with the tropical forms. 
Many species, however, which abound in the Indian Ocean range 
as far north as Japan, from which circumstance it is presumed 
that a current sets in that direction. The middle portion of this 
province is vastly extended in longitude, for very many species 
of the Red Sea, the eastern coast of Africa, and the Mauritius 
range to the Indian and China Seas, to those of northern Australia 
and ^11 Polynesia ; so in this immense belt, which embraces 
three-fourths of the circumference of the globe, and 60 degrees 
of latitude, the fish are very nearly alike, the continuous chains 
of islands in the Pacific being favourable to their dispersion. 
Few of the Pacific fish enter the Atlantic ;"° and from the depth 
and want of islands in it the great bulk of species is different on 
its two sides. North of the 44th parallel, however, the number 
common to both shores increases. The salmon of America is 
identical with that of the British isles, the coasts of Norway and 
Sweden ; the cod-fish is the same, as well as several others of the 
cod family. The Cottus or bullhead tribe are also the same on 
both sides of the North Atlantic, and they increase in numbers 
and variety on approaching the Arctic seas. The same occurs 
in the northern Pacific, though the generic forms differ from 
those in the Atlantic. From the near approach of the American 
and Asiatic coasts at Behring's Straits, the fish on both sides are 
nearly alike, down to the Sea of Okhotsk on one side and to 
Admiralty Inlet on the other. The Japan Sea and the neigh- 
bouring coasts of China are frequented b}?" fish having northern 
forms, which are there mingled with many species common to 
the temperate and warm parts of the ocean. Species of the 
genus Gadus or Cod reappear in the southern seas very hke 

™ The notocanthus and macrourus are the deep-water fish in the 
arctic regions; they also inhabit the seas of New Zealand. The Pacific 
fish that enter the Atlantic are some of the mackarel tribe, sharks, and 
lophobranches. The genera most prevalent in the southern hemisphere 
are the notothemia, borichthys, and harpagifer. The same species of 
these genera are found in the seas of the Falkland Islands, Cape Horn, 
the Auckland Islands, and Kerguelen's Land. — Dr. Richardson. 
32 



374 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

those of the northern ; and two very remarkable Greenland 
genera, which inhabit deeper water, and are seldom taken except 
when thrown up by a storm, have been discovered on the coasts 
of New Zealand and South Australia, where the fish differ but 
.ittle from those in the seas of Van Diemen's Land. Several 
genera are peculiar to the southern hemisphere, and range 
throughout the whole circle of the high latitudes. The sharks 
of the China seas are, for the most part, identical with those of 
Australia : the cartilaginous fish to which they belong have a 
much wider range than those which have been under considera- 
tion. 

The British islands he between two great provinces of fishes — 
one to the south, the other to the north — from each of which we 
have occasionally visitors. The centre of the first is on the 
coasts of the Spanish peninsula, extending into the Mediter- 
ranean ; that on the north has its centre about the Shetland 
Islands ; but the g'roup peculiarly British, and found nowhere 
else, has its focus in the Irish Sea. It is, however, mixed with 
fish from the seas bounding the western shores of central Europe, 
which form a distinct group. 

The Prince of Canino has shown that there are 853 species of 
European fish, of which 210 live in fresh water, 643 are marine, 
and 60 of these go up rivers to spawn. 444 of the marine fish 
inhabit the Mediterranean, 216 are British, and 171 are pecuhar 
to the Scandinavian seas ; so that the Mediterranean is richest in 
variety of species. In it there are pecuhar sharks, sword-fish, 
dolphins, anchovies, and six species of scomber or tunny, one of 
the largest of edible fish, for which fisheries are established on 
the southern coasts of France, in Sardinia, Elba, the Straits of 
Messina, and the Adriatic. Four of the species are found 
nowhere else but in the Mediterranean. Rays of numerous 
species are particularly characteristic of the Mediterranean, espe- 
cially the two torpedos, which have the power of giving an 
electric shock, and even the electric spark. The Mediterranean 
has two or three American species, 41 fish in common with 
Madeira, one in common with the Red Sea, and a very few seern 
to be Indian. Some of these fish must have- entered the Medi- 
terranean before it was separated from the Red Sea by the Isth- 
mus of Suez ; but geological changes have had very great influ- 
ence on the distribution of fishes everywhere. Taking salt and 
fresh-water fish together, there are 100 species common to Italy 
and Britain; and although the communication with the Black 
Sea is so direct, there are only 27 fish common to it and the 
Mediterranean ; but the Black Sea forms a district by itself, 
having its own peculiar fish ; and those in the Caspian Sea differ 
entirely from those in every other part of the globe. The island 



MIGRATORY FISH. 375 

of Madeira, solitary amid a great expanse of ocean, has many- 
species. They amount in number to half of those in Britain ; 
and nearly as many are common to Britain and Madeira as to 
that island and the Mediterranean ; so that many of our fish have 
a wide range in the Atlantic. The Mediterranean certainly sur- 
passes the British and Scandinavian seas in variety, though it 
is far inferior to either in the quantity or quality of useful fish. 
Cod, turbot, haddock, tusk, Hng, herring, and many more, are 
better in northern seas than elsewhere, and several exist there 
only. 

The greater number of fish used by man as food frequent shoal 
water. The coast of Holland, our own shores, and other parts of 
the North Sea where the water is shallow, teem with a never- 
ending supply of excellent fish of many kinds. 

Vast numbers are gregarious and migratory. Cod arrive in 
the shallow parts of the coast of Norway in February, in shoals 
many yards deep, and so closely crowded together that the 
sounding-lead can hardly pass between them: 16,000,000 have 
been caught in one place in a few weeks. In April they return to 
the ocean. Herrings come in astonishing quantities in winter. 

The principal cod fisheries are on the banks of Newfoundland 
and the Dogger-bank. They, like all animals, frequent the places 
to which they have been accustomed. Herrings come to the same 
places for a series of years, and then desert them, perhaps from 
having exhausted the food. Pilchards, mackerel, and many others, 
may be mentioned among the gregarious and migratory fish. 

Sharks like deep water. . They are found of different species 
in all tropical and temperate seas ; and, although always dangerous, 
they are more ferocious in some places than in others, even of the 
same species. 

Most lakes have fish of peculiar species, as the lake Baikal. 
The fishes of the great interalpine Lake of Titicaca amount to 7 
or 8 species, and belong to genera only found in the higher regions 
of the Andes. In the North American lakes there is a thick- 
scaled fish, analogous to those of the early geological eras ; and 
the giilaroo trout, which is remarkable in having a gizzard, is 
found in Ireland only. Pike and salmon are the only species of 
fresh-water fish common to Europe and North America ; the pike 
is, however, unknown west of the Rocky Mountains. The com- 
mon salmon does not exist beyond 45° of N. lat. on the eastern 
coast of America, and it is probably confined within similar limits 
on the eastern coast of Asia. It is said to be an inhabitant of all 
the northern parts of the old world from the entrance of the Bay 
of Biscay to North Cape, and along the arctic shores of Asia and 
Kamtchatka to the Sea of Okhotsk, including the Baltic, White 
Sea, Gulf of Kara, and other inlets. Other kinds of the Salmon 



376 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

tribe are plentiful in the estuaries of Kamtchatka and on the 
opposite coast of America down to Oregon, but apparently they 
do not extend to China. Salmon go up rivers to spawn, and 
make extraordinary leaps over impediments of rocks or walls, in 
order to reach the suitable places for depositing their eggs. 
Forty-four fish inhabit the British lakes and rivers, and 50 those 
of Scandinavia, of the very best kinds. The fresh-water fish of 
northern chmates are better than those of the southern. 

Each tropical river has its own species of fish. The fresh- 
water fish of China agree with those of India in generic forms, 
but not in species ;"^ and those of the Cape of Good Hope and 
South America differ from those in India and China. Sea-fish, in 
immense quantities, frequent the estuaries of rivers everywhere. 
The mouth of the Mississippi is full of fish ; and the quantity at 
the mouth of the Don, in the Sea of Azof, is prodigious. 

There are some singular analogies between the inhabitants of 
the sea and those of the land. Many of the medusae, two coral- 
lines, the Physalia, or Portuguese man-of-war, of sailors, and 
some others, sting like a nettle when touched. A cuttle-fish, at 
the Cape de Verde islands, changes colour like the chameleon, 
assuming the tint of the ground under it. Herrings, pilchards, 
and many other fish, as well as sea insects, are luminous. The 
medusa tribe, the species of which are numerous, have the faculty 
of shedding light in the highest degree. In warm climates, espe- 
cially, the sea seems to be on fire, and the wake of a ship is like 
a vivid flame. Probably fish that go below the depths to which 
the light of the sun penetrates are endowed with this faculty; 
and shoals of luminous insects have been seen at a considerable 
depth below the surface of the water. The glow-worm, some 
beetles, and fire-flies, shine with the same pale-green light. But 
among the terrestrial inhabitants there is nothing analogous to the 
property of the Gymnotus electricus of South America, the trem- 
bler, or Silurus electricus, of the African rivers, and the different 
species of the torpedo of the Mediterranean, which possess the 
faculty of giving the electric shock. 

The marine mammalia, which, as their name indicates, suckle 
their j^oung, form two distinct families— -the Phocse or seals, and 
the Cetacea or whales, and porpoises: whilst fish breathe by 
means of gills, which separate the air dissolved in the water, 
the marine mammalia possess lungs and breathe as the terrestrial 
quadrupeds ; they are obliged to come to the surface from time 
to time, consequently, to inhale the air. 

■^^ The Chinese fresh-water fish are cyprinidsB, ophicephali, and 
siluridsB — genera which agree closely with those in India^ though the 
species are different. 



MARINE MAMMALIA. 377 

The first family consists of the seal tribe, and is most abundant 
in the polar regions ; they live exclusively on fisji, are carnivorous, 
and are seldom found at a great distance from the land or ice 
islands. To this division belong the common seal and the walrus 
in our northern hemisphere ; whilst the genus Otaria or sea-lion, 
with different forms and characters, and which attains in general 
a greater size, is only found in high southern latitudes. 

The family of Cetacea consists of three great genera : the 
manati and dugong, which, live in or near the estuaries of tropical 
rivers, are herbivorous ; the dolphins or porpoises, which are car- 
nivorous, provided with long jaws and numerous teeth, and are 
found in almost every latitude and in every sea ; and the whales, 
which, unprovided with cutting teeth, are furnished with whale- 
bone inserted in the upper jaw, the extreme filaments of which 
are destined as a kind of net to catch the minute marine animals 
which form their food. The marine Cetacea breathe by an open- 
ing in the centre of the head, called, in whales, the blower, cor- 
responding to the nose of terrestrial quadrupeds, and which also 
serves to expel the water taken into the mouth with the food, in 
the form of jets, which, in the whale tribe, varies in height and 
form according lo the species. 

The favorite haunts of the seal tribe are the polar oceans and 
desert islands in high latitudes, where they bask in hundreds on 
the sunny shores during the brief summer of these inhospitable 
regions, and become an easy prey to man, who has nearly extir- 
pated the race in many places. A miUion are annually killed in 
the South Atlantic alone. Seven species are natives of the Arctic, 
Atlantic, and Polar Oceans ; the Greenland seal, the bearded or 
great seal, and the Phoca leporina are found also in the high 
latitudes of the Northern Pacific. The Phoca oceanica is only 
in the White Sea and the sea at Nova Zembla, and the Phoca 
sagura on the coast of Newfoundland. The sea-Hon is to be 
found on all the coasts of the South Pacific, but their principal 
gathering is on the island of St. George, one of the Pruibiloff group, 
in lat. 56° N. The common seal is or 7 feet long, with a face 
hke that of a dog, and a large intelligent eye. It is easily tamed, 
and in the Orkney island it is so much domesticated that it follows 
its master, and helps him to catch fish. This seal migrates in herds 
from Greenland twice in the year, and returns again to its former 
haunts ; they probably come to the coasts of Europe and the 
British islands at the time of their migrations, but the Phoca 
vitulina is a constant inhabitant of our shores. Some of the seal 
tribe have a very wide range, as the fur species, Arctocephalus 
ursinus, of the Falkland islands, which at one time frequented 
the southern coasts of New Holland in muUitudes, but they and 
three other species have now become scarce, from the indiscriminate 
32* 



378 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

slaughter of old and young. Sir James Ross found some of tlie 
islands in the Antarctic seas overrun with the sea-elephant, Phoca 
elephantina, and they captured a new species of seal without 
external ears. The Walrus, a grim-looking creature, with tusks 
2 feet long, bent downwards, and its nose covered with transparent 
bristles, bias a body like that of a seal, 20 feet long, with a coat of 
short grey or yellow hair. It sleeps on the floating ice, feeds on 
sea-weed and marine animals, and never leaves the Arctic seas. 

The manati and dugong form the first group of the family of 
the Cetacea ; they are exclusively herbivorous, and inhabit near 
the mouths of the great tropical rivers. The lamantinormanatus 
of two species is found in the Amazon and Orinoco, and in some 
rivers of Western Africa. In the former, w^here it is known as 
the sea-cow, its body is round like a wine-bag, and sometimes 
attains a length of 12 or 15 feet ; it browses in herds on the 
herbage at the bottom of streams ; and when attacked, the mother 
defends her young at the sacrifice of her own life. The dugong 
is an inhabitant of the eastern archipelago, and of the shallow 
parts of the Indian Ocean, where it also feeds on sea-weed ; it is 
more a marine animal than the lamantin, as it is scarcely ever 
seen in fresh water. The dugong is so harmless and tame as to 
allow itself to be handled. When it suckles its young it sits 
upright, which has given rise to the fable of the Mermaid. This 
animal, like the lamantin, will sacrifice its life for its young, and 
is, hence, among the Malays, held as the type of maternal affec- 
tion. The animal called the Manatus septentrionahs, which fre- 
quents the Arctic seas, is very little known, and probably not one 
of the herbivorous Cetacea. 

The second group or genus of the Cetacea consists of those 
of predatory habits ; they live on fish, and, consequently, have 
sharp and numerous teeth, such as porpoises, dolphins, and 
spermaceti whales or Cachalots ; they have, fike all the animals 
of this family, spouting nostrils in the upper part of the head.'^^ 
The common porpoise is seen spouting and tumbling on the sur- 
face of all the seas of Europe ; shoals of them go in pursuit of 
herrings and mackerel, and even swim up the rivers in chase of 
salmon. They have more the form of fish than the seal tribe, 
and have a dorsal fin. The several species of Dolphins, so 
remarkable for their voracity and for the swiftness of their 
motions, owing to the symmetry of their form and the width of 
their horizontally-placed tail, are seen in almost every latitude. 
The white dolphin, eaten by the Icelanders, is 18 feet long, and 

■^2 The carnivorous Cetacea, with two remarkable exceptionSj inhabit 
the ocean — the Delphinus Inca, of the Amazons and its affluents; and 
the D. " " " 



SPERMACETI WHALES. 379 

migrates from the Atlantic to Greenland in the end of November. 
The Grampus, Delphinus Orca, nearly allied to the killer of the 
South Sea whalers, is fierce and voracious, often 20 feet long, 
roams in numerous shoals, preying upon the larger fish, and 
even attacking the whale. The Grind or black dolphin has been 
known to run ashore in hundreds in the bays of Feroe, Orkney, 
and Shetland. This seems to be the same or nearly allied to the 
black fish which was met with in vast numbers by Sir James 
Ross in the Antarctic seas : they had so little fear, that they 
darted below the ship on one side and came up at the other. 
The white porpoise, Delphinus peronii, of the southern whalers, 
is a rare and elegant species of dolphin which chiefly inhabits the 
high southern latitudes, but has been seen at the equator in the 
Pacific. They are about six feet long, the hinder part of the 
head, the back, and the flukes of their tail are black, and all the 
rest of the purest white. The Narwhal, or sea-unicorn (Monodon 
monoceros), has no teeth, but a tusk of fine ivory wreathed with a 
spiral groove extending 8 or 10 feet straight from the head ; in 
general there is only one tusk, but there are always the rudiments 
of another, and occasionally both grow to an equal length. The 
old narwhals are white with blackish spots, the young are dark- 
coloured. This singular creature, which is about sixteen feet 
long without the tusks, swims with great swiftness. Mr. Scoresby 
has seen 15 or 20 at a time playing round his ship in the Arctic 
seas, and crossing their long tusks in all directions as if they were 
fencing ; they are found in all parts of the Northern Ocean. 

The spermaceti whale, the Cachalot or Physeter Macrocepha- 
lus, belonging to the family of the predaceous spouters, is one of 
the most formidable inhabitants of the deep. Its average size is 
60 feet long and 40 feet in circumference ; its head, equal to a 
third of its length, is extremely thick and blunt in front, with a 
throat wide enough to swallow a man. The proportionally small 
swimming paws or pectoral fins are at a short distance behind the 
head, and the tail, which is a horizontal triangle 6 or 7 feet long, and 
19 feet wide, with a notch between the flukes, is the chief organ 
of progressive motion and defence. It has a hump of fat on its 
back, is of a dark colour, but with a very smooth clean skin. 
These sperm whales have two nostrils on the top of their head, 
through which they throw, at each expiration, a succession of jets 
like smoke, at intervals of 15 or 20 minutes, after which they toss 
their tails high in the air and go head foremost to vast depths, 
where they remain for a considerable time, and then return again 
to the surface to breathe. The jet or spout is. from to 8 feet 
high, and consists of water mixed with air, expired from the lungs. 
This whale has sperm-oil and spermaceti in every part of its body, 
but the latter is chiefly in a vast reservoir in its head, which makes 



380 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

it very buoyant, and ambergris is sometimes found in the inside 
of the body, supposed to be the produce of disease. These huge 
monsters, occasionally 75 feet long, go in great herds of 500 or 
600, or schools, as the whalers call them. Females with their 
young, and two or three old males, generally form one company, 
aiid the young males another, while the old males feed and hunt 
singly. The sperm whales swim gracefully and equally, with 
their head above the water ; but when a troop of them play on 
the surface of the water, some of these uncouth and gigantic 
creatures leap with the agiHty of a salmon several feet into the 
air, and fall down again heavily with a tremendous crash and 
noise like a cannon, driving the water up in loft}^ columns capped 
with foam. The fishery of the sperm whale is attended with 
great danger ; not only the wounded animal, but its companions 
who come to its aid, sometimes fight desperately, killing the 
whalers and tossing them into the air with a sweep of their tre- 
mendous tails, or biting a boat in two. In 1820, the American 
whaler Essex was wrecked in the Pacific by a sperm whale ; it 
first gave the ship so severe a blow that it broke ofi' part of the 
keel, then, retreating to a distance, it rushed furiously, and with 
its enormous head beat in a portion of the planks, and the people 
had just time to save themselves in the boats when the vessel 
filled. They often lie and listen when suspicious of mischief. 
No part of the aqueous globe, except the Arctic seas, is free from 
their visits ; they have been seen in the Mediterranean and the 
Adriatic, in the British Channel, and even in the estuary of the 
Thames, but their chief resort is the deepest parts of the warmer 
seas within or near the tropics, and in the Antarctic Ocean, where 
they feed on floating molluscse, the sepia or cuttle-fish, &c. 

The second and last genus of the Cetacea are whalebone 
whales, such as the Greenland whale and rorquals. Instead of 
teeth, the upper jaws of these animals are furnished with plates 
and filaments of whalebone, which are moveable, and are adapted 
to retain, as in a net, the medusae and other small marine animals 
that are the food of these colossal inhabitants of the deep. The 
common Greenland species, Balsena Mysticetus, was formerly 
much more numerous, but it is now chiefly confined to the very 
high northern latitudes ; however, should it be the same with the 
whale found in such multitudes in shallow water on the coasts of 
the Pacific and in the Antarctic Ocean by Sir James Ross, it must 
have a very wide range, but it is more probable that each pole has 
its own species. The Greenland whale is from 65 to 70 feet 
long, but they are so much persecuted that they probably never 
live long enough to come to their full size. The head is very 
large, but the opening of the throat is so narrow that it can only 
swallow small animals. It has no dorsal fin: the swimming 



FABULOUS MARINE SERPENTS. 381 

paws are about nine feet long, and the flat tail is half-moon 
shaped and notched in the middle. It has two spouts or nostrils, 
through which it throws jets like puffs of smoke some yards high. 
It only remains two or three minutes on the surface to breathe, 
and then goes under water for five or six. The back and tail are 
velvet-black, shaded in some places into grey, the rest is white : 
some are piebald. The capture of this whale is often attended 
with much cruelty, from their affection for their young ; indeed 
the custom of killing the calf in order to capture the mother has 
ruined the fishery in several places, especially in New Zealand, 
where there were eight species of whales in vast abundance. 

Rorquals are also whalebone whales, differing from the com- 
mon whale in the more elongated form of the head. One species 
is from 80 to 100 feet long, the largest of marine animals. The 
bottle-nosed whale, a smaller species, was exceedingly numerous 
in the Arctic seas ; in the year 1809, 1100 were stranded in Huel- 
fiord in Iceland. This whale travels to lower latitudes in pur- 
suit of herrings and other fish. It had been caught on the coast of 
Norway as early as the year 890, and probably long before. The 
first northern navigators were not attracted by the whale as an 
object of commerce, but stumbled upon it in their search for a 
north-west passage to the Pacific. The hump-backed whale, 
Baloena gibbosa, a rorqual 30 or 40 feet long, is met with in small 
herds in the intertropical and southern regions of the Pacific and 
Atlantic ; it is seldom molested by the whalers, and is very dan- 
gerous for boats, from the habit it has of leaping and rising sud- 
denly to the surface. None of the senses of the whale tribe are 
very acute ; the whalebone whales alone have the sense of smell- 
ing, and, although the sperm whale is immediately aware of a 
companion being harpooned at a very great distance, they do not 
hear well in air, and none have voice.^^ 

The existence of creatures in the ocean resembling enormous 
serpents has been announced at different times for more than a 
century, but has never been authentically established. Accounts 
of such monsters having been seen in the northern seas, in the 
fiords of Norway and Sweden, had been given to the world by 
Egede and Pantoppidan : by the latter more on hearsay evidence 
than from his own observation. But, as in every instance, the 
pretended sea-serpent was represented to possess either the blow- 
holes of the Cetacea or the head and mane of a seal, it was evi- 
dent the credulity of our Scandinavian neighbours had converted 
some well-known animals into the incomprehensible marine 
monsters of their imagination. The same may be said of the 
sea-serpent represented to have been stranded on one of the 

'^ Captain Scoresby's '^ Arctic Voyages.'' 



282 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

Orkney Islands in 1808, of which a part of a skeleton is pre'served 
in the Museum of the College of Surgeons, and which, when 
examined by the naturahst, proved to belong to a large species of 
shark ; and of that fallen in with off the coast of Halifax in 1833, 
by some British officers engaged on a fishing expedition. The 
existence of the sea-serpent was looked upon therefore as one of 
those creations of that imaginative credulity, so frequently enter- 
tained by ignorant seafaring persons, and had ceased to attract 
any attention except occasionally by an illusion to it in some 
Transatlantic newspaper ; when it has been again revived by no 
less a person than the commander of one of her Majesty's ships, 
w^ho has considered its discovery by him to be worthy of a report 
to the Lords of the Admiralty. The officer in question. Captain 
M'Glahae, of her Majesty's ship Dadalus, states that, on the 6th 
of August, 1848, being in lat. 24° 44' S., long. 9° 22' E., conse- 
quently not far from the south-western coast of Africa, he descried 
in broad daylight, and at a short distance, an animal with the 
head of a serpent and at least 60 feet long, passing his ship to the 
south-westward at the rate of 15 miles an hour. Professor Owen, 
after a careful and impartial consideration of all the details given 
of this strange apparition, has shown to the satisfaction of every 
unbiassed mind that the animals seen by the officers of the Daeda- 
lus was probably a large species of southern seal, and perhaps the 
Otaria Proboscidea. The genus Otaria is longer in proportion 
than our Arctic seals, and its fore flappers being situated farther 
back, the neck of the animal becomes longer, and is generally, in 
the act of swimming, raised out of the water, as seen and repre- 
sented by Captain M'duhae in his drawing. Professor Owen 
supposes that this seal had been carried from its usual haunts in 
or near the Antarctic circle on an iceberg, which having melted 
away in these middle latitudes, the animal was obliged to find its 
way back by its own locomotive powers ; an opinion rendered the 
more likely, when we consider that it was making for the nearest 
land, where such animals are known to live, Gough Island and 
Tristan d'Acunha,from which it was distant about 1500 miles, or 
4 days' journey, at the rate and in the direction it is represented 
by Captain M'Gluhae to have been progressing when seen from 
his ship. This statement of the appearance therefore of the sea- 
serpent in 1848 adds nothing to our certainty as to the existence 
of such monsters ; whilst it shows how easy it is, for even well- 
informed persons, to raise up imaginary beings out of animals 
well-known to the naturalist. The general public, always fond 
of the marvellous and extraordinary, is too prone to credit such 
stories, and too ready to admit the existence of beings, however 
opposed to all the known laws of organic co-existences. To per- 
sons ready to give credit to the assertions of those ignorant of the 



DISTRIBUTION OF REPTILES. 283 

first principles of zoology, it would be a loss of time for the natu- 
ralist to endeavour to explain how impossible it is that the head 
and jaws of a serpent, with the skin and mane of a seal, and the 
blow-hole of a porpoise, could ever be found united in the same 
animal. As well might one try to reason with a believer in 
ghosts and fairies on the non-existence of those creations of a dis- 
ordered imagination. 



CHAPTER XXX. 



Distribution of Reptiles — Frogs and Toads — Snakes^ SaurianS; and Tor- 
toises. 

Reptiles, more than any other class of animals, show the partial 
distribution of animated beings, because, being unable to travel to 
any great distance, they have remained in the places wherein 
they were originally stationed ; and as they inhabit deserts, 
forests, and uncultivated ground, they have not been disturbed by 
man, who has only destroyed some individuals, but has not dimin- 
ished the number of species, which is probably the same as 
ever it was. Few of the mammalia hybernate, or fall into a torpid 
state in winter, except the bear, marmot, bats, and some others. 
Their fat supplies the carbon consumed by the oxygen during 
their feeble and imperceptible respiration, and is wasted by the 
time the warm weather returns, which rouses them from their 
lethargy, thin and extenuated. But reptiles, being colder-blooded, 
bury themselves in the ground, and hybernate during the Avinter 
in cold and temperate climates. In hot countries, they fall into a 
state of torpor during the dry season, so that they have no occa- 
sion to wander, either on account of temperature or want of suste- 
nance ; and the few that do migrate in quest of food always return 
to their old haunts. As the blood of reptiles receives only a small 
part of the oxygen they inhale, little heat and strength are gener- 
ated ; consequently they are cold-blooded, and, for the most part, 
sluggish in their motions, which, however, are more varied than 
in quadrupeds ; but as some reptiles, such as tortoises and lizards, 
breathe more frequently than others, there are, consequently, 
great differences in their energy and sensibility. 

The order of Reptiles is divided by naturalists into four classes, 
commencing in the ascending order: — 1. Batracians or frogs, 
toads, and salamanders; 2. Ophidians or serpents; 3. Saurians, 
lizards, chameleons, crocodiles ; and 4. Emydians or tortoises, 
and turtle. With very few exceptions they are oviparous ; they 
jmrtake of both terrestrial and aquatic forms, and many are am- 



384 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

phibious : they all increase in numbers towards the equator, and 
few live in cold climates ; but they can endure a cold winter 
better than a cool summer. Frogs and salamanders inhabit the 
banks of the M'Kenzie river in North America, where the mean 
temperature is between 7° and 8° of Fahrenheit ; the thermome- 
ter in winter even sinks to 90° below the freezing point. The 
southern limit of reptile's, so far as it is known, is in 50° S. lat., 
where a frog was found on the banks of the river Santa Cruz. 

The number of species of reptiles in the torrid zone is at least 
double that in the temperate ; Australia has fewer than Europe, 
and of all places in the Old World, Java is richest in reptiles. 
America possesses more than half of all the species, the maximum 
being in Brazil, but every one of them is pecuhar to that continent 
alone. 

The Batrachians approach nearest to the nature of fishes, and 
and form a link between land and water animals. As tadpoles 
they have tails and no feet, but when full-grown they generally 
acquire feet and lose their tails. Besides, in that early stage they 
are aquatic and breathe by gills, like fishes ; but in a state of 
maturity they breathe by lungs like quadrupeds, though some of 
the genera alwaj^s retain their gills and tails, and some never 
acquire feet. These animals have the power of retarding and 
accelerating their respiration without stopping the circulation of 
their blood, so that they can resist heat and cold to a certain 
degree — a power most remarkable in the salamander, which 
forms part of this class, so varied in appearance and nature. 
Some, as toads and frogs, imbibe a quantity of water, which is 
evaporated through their skin more or less quickly. This keeps 
them at the temperature of the medium they live in, and the air 
they inhale_ through the skin is as necessary to their existence as 
that which they breathe. 

The group of toads and frogs consists of four families, which 
have four feet, but without tails ; namely, frogs, hylas or rainettes, 
toads, and pipas. Frogs, which are amphibious, have no nails on 
their toes, and their hind legs are longer than the fore, and webbed, 
consequently better fitted for swimming and jumping, which they 
do by leaps. There are 16 genera, and above 50 species, so that 
they are more numerous and more varied than any other reptile. 
Of the hyla or tree-frog there are 60 species, all of the most vivid 
and briihant tints, and several colours are frequently united on 
the same animal. They mostly live on high trees, and their 
webbed feet have little cushions at the points of their toes, forming 
a kind of sucker, by means of which they can squeeze out the air 
from under their feet, and, b}^ the pressure of the atmosphere, 
they adhere firmly to the under side of the smoothest leaf, exactly 
on the same principle by which flies walk on the ceiling of a 



TOADS AND FIIOGS. 385 

room. The bufo, or toad, is the ugliest of the race ; many are 
hideous, with swollen bodies, wart-like excrescences, and obtuse 
toes. They seldom go into water, but frequently marshy, damp 
places, and only crawl, whereas the frog and hyla leap. They 
are much fewer than either of the other two families ; only 30 
species are known. The pipse are also toads of a still more dis- 
gusting form, aod are distinguished from their congeners by not 
having an extensile tongue. All these reptiles produce noises, 
which are exceedingly varied ; they croak in concert, following a 
leader, and when he is tired another takes his place. One of the 
North American frogs croaks in bands ; one band begins, another 
answers, and a third replies, till the noise is heard at a great dis- 
tance ; a pause then takes place, after which the croaking is 
renewed. Mr. Darwin mentions a little musical hyla at Rio de 
Janeiro, which croaks a kind of harmony in different notes. 

Toads and frogs are found in almost all parts of the earth, 
though very unequally and partially distributed. America has 
more than all the other countries taken together, and Europe the 
fewest. Six species of frogs, one rainette, and two toads, are 
European ; and all, except four of the frogs, are also found in Asia 
and Africa. The Rana temporaria lives at the height of 7700 
feet in the Pyrenees, and near the snow-line on the Alps. 

The law of circumscribed distribution is strongly marked in 
Asia ; for of ten species of frogs peculiar to that continent, three 
only are in the mainland, two are confined to Japan, and, of the 
five that are Javanese, one is also common to Amboina, and the 
other four to Bengal. The eight species of rainettes, or tree-frogs, 
are still more limited in their domicile ; five of them are in Java 
only, and one in Japan ; and the Hyla viridis is in Asia Minor. 
There are nine species of toad peculiar to Asia. 

None of these reptiles exist in the Galapagos Archipelago, nor 
in any of the innumerable islands in Oceanica, and there are very 
few in Australia, but all pecuhar. In Africa there are eight spe- 
cies of frogs, two or three of rainettes, and two of toads. One of 
the two species of pipa,.more horrid in appearance than any toad, 
is very common at the Cape of Good Hope, and there only. 

The great extent of marshes, rivers, and forests, together with 
the heat of the climate, make America the very home of reptiles 
of this kind, and there they grow to a greater size than anywhere 
else : 23 species of frog, 27 species of tree-frog or rainette, and 
21 of toads, are indigenous in that continent, not one of which is 
the same with any of those in the Old World; and most of those 
in South America are different from those in the northern part of 
the continent, though they are sometimes replaced by analogous 
kinds. All these reptiles have abodes, with fixed demarcations, 
often of small extent. The pipa, or toad of Surinam, is the most 
33 



386 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

horrid of the tribe; the Bufo agua, of Brazil, 10 or 12 inches 
loDg, and the Rana pipiens, of CaroHna, are the largest. 

The second family of this class of reptiles have tails and feet, 
as the salamanders, which are very like lizards in their general 
form, having a long round or flattened tail and four feet. Some 
are terrestrial, and some are aquatic ; the former are known as 
salamanders or newts, the latter as tritons. Both are met with in 
Europe, but the greater number are American. The amphibious 
genera of Amphiuma Menopoma and Syren, possessing both lungs 
and gills, are American ; the latter are peculiar to the marshes 
and rice-grounds of Carolina, and the Axolotl is only found in the 
Lake of Mexico: they are very like eels with two feet. The 
Proteus anguinus, of a light flesh-colour, has four little feet and a 
flat tail, and has been found nowhere but in the dark subterraneous 
caverns in Carniola. 

The third group of this order of Batrachians are the Cseciliae, 
of which there are only eight species, all inhabitants of the warm 
parts of Asia, Africa, and America. They have a cylindrical 
body, without feet or neck, and move exactly as the serpent, so 
they seem to form the Imk between these reptiles and the class 
of frogs and toads. 

There are serpents in all hot and temperate countries, but they 
abound most in intertropical regions. Java contains 56 species, 
which is a greater number comparatively than any other country, 
while in Borneo not one has been found. Those in Japan are 
peculiar. Wherever snakes exist, there also are some of the 
venomous kinds, but they are fewer, specifically and individually, 
than is generally supposed. Of 263 species, only 57 are venom- 
ous, or about one in five, although that proportion is not every- 
where the same. In sterile, open countries, the proportion of 
venomous snakes is greater than in those that are covered with 
vegetation. Thus, in New Holland, seven out of ten species are 
poisonous ; and in Africa, one of every two or three individuals 
is noxious. In general, however, the number of harmless indi- 
viduals is twenty times as great as the number of the poisonous. 

The three great famihes of venomous serpents are the colubri- 
form or adder-shaped snakes, sea-serpents, and the triangular- 
headed snakes. 

The adder-formed snakes are divided into three genera, the 
elaps, which are slender like a cord, with a small head, and of 
brilliant colours. There are four species in South America, of 
which two are confined to Guiana, and one to Surinam, while the 
other is found everywhere from Bazil to Carolina. There is only 
one in Africa, three in Australia, and the rest are in limited dis- 
tricts in tropical Asia, especially in Sumatra and Java ; and an 
entire genus is found only in India, and the islands of Ceylon and 



SERPENTS. 387 

Java. The hooded snakes (or Cobra Capello) are the best known 
of this family, especially the spectacled or dancing snake of the 
Indian jugglers, which is common everywhere from Malabar to 
Sumatra, and two other species are only found in Sumatra and 
Java. The three or four African species are chiefly at the Cape 
of Good Hope and on the Gold Coast; but the most celebrated is 
that generally known as the Egyptian asp, which has been tamed 
by magicians of ancient and modern times, and is frequently 
figured in Egyptian monuments; it derives some of its celebrity 
from Cleopatra's death. Two of the family inhabit New Holland, 
one of which is spectacled, hke, but of a different species from, 
that in India. 

All the seven species of sea-snakes are very venomous, and 
more ferocious than any other. They frequent the Indian Ocean 
in shoals from Malabar to the Phihppine Islands and the Bay of 
Bengal ; they never enter fresh water. 

The third venomous family consists of the triangular-headed 
serpents, rattle-snakes, and vipers. The first are of a hideous 
aspect, — a large head, broad at the base hke a heart, a wide mouth, 
with their hooked poisonous fangs strongly developed. They 
quietly watch their prey till it is within reach, then dart upon it, 
and inflict the deadly wound in a moment ; the yellow viper of 
the French West India islands, the Trigonocephalus lanceolatus, 
being amongst the dangerous snakes in existence. One species 
in the Old World is to be met with everywhere from Ceylon to 
the Phillippine Islands; one is a native in Sumatra, Timor, and 
Celebes ; the rest are narrowly limited in their abode ; two are 
confined to Java alone. Ceylon, Sumatra, Japan, and Tartary, 
have each a species of these serpents peculiar to itself. 

The rattle-snakes are all American — two in the warm districts 
of North America, and two in the intertropical parts of South 
America. One of the latter, however, has a hard horn at the end 
of its tail, instead of a rattle, and sometimes grows to the length 
of 10 feet, being, with the Trigonocephalus, the longest of the 
venomous snakes. 

Vipers come farther north than any other of the noxious tribe: 
two are Asiatic, though one is also common to Africa, which, 
however, has four peculiar to itself; and the only venomous 
serpents in Europe are three species of viper, one of which is 
also spread over the neighbouring parts of Asia and Africa. The 
common viper inhabits all central Europe and temperate Asia, 
even to Lake Baikal, in the Altai Mountains : it is also found in 
England and Sweden, but it does not go farther west than the 
Seine, nor does it pass the Alps. One which frequents dry soils, 
in the south-east of Europe, is in Styria, Greece, Dalmatia, and 
Sicily ; and the aspic viper, which lives on rocky ground, inhabits 



388 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

France between the Seine and the Pyrenees, Switzerland, Italy, 
and Sicily. 

There are six families of innocuous serpents, consisting of numer- 
ous species. Four of the famihes are terrestrial ; their species 
are very limited in their domicile, the greater number being con- 
fined to some of the islands of the Indian Archipelago, Ceylon, or 
to circumscribed districts in tropical Asia, Africa, and America. 
Nine or ten species are European, some of which are also found 
in Asia and Africa. 

Tree-serpents of various genera and numerous species live only 
in the great tropical forests of Asia and America, especially in the 
latter. They are long and slender, the head for the most part 
ending in a sharp point, and generally green, though there are 
some of brighter colours ; many of these serpents are fierce, though 
not venomous; some feed on birds, which they watch hanging by 
the tail from a bough. 

In all temperate and warm countries abounding in lakes and 
rivers, fresh-water snakes are numerous ; some live in the water, 
but they mostly inhabit the banks near it ; they are excellent 
swimmers, and may be seen crossing lakes in shoals. America 
is particularly rich in them, there are several in Europe. and Asia, 
but they are rare in Africa, and none have been yet discovered in 
Austraha. 

The genus Boa is peculiarly American, though some smaller in 
size and differing in species are found in Asia. The boa con- 
strictor, generally from 9 to 15 feet long, lives in the great tropi- 
cal forests of South America, where it often watches its prey hang- 
ing from the boughs of trees. Two of smaller size have similar 
habits, and two are aquatic, one of which is sometimes 20 feet long, 
and another 6 feet ; the latter inhabits banks of the rivers from the 
Amazons to Surinam ; and a species is found at the foot of the 
Andes of duito, as high as 3000 feet. 

Pythons are the largest snakes of the eastern world, where they 
represent the boas of the western; one species, which sometimes 
attains the length of 20 feet, is spread from the western coast of 
Africa, throughout intertropical Asia, to Java and China. An- 
other, only 14 feet long, is confined to Malacca and some of the 
Sunda Islands. Two others are found only in the islands of Timor 
and Saparua,and one in New Holland. There are only two spe- 
cies of Acrochordi, which, like boas and pythons, twist themselves 
round their victims and crush them to death: one aquatic, pecu- 
liar to Java ; the other is a land snake, found everywhere through 
India to New Guinea. 

The West Indian islands have the snakes of North and South 
America, and some peculiar; the snakes of central America are 
little known. 



CROCODILES AND LIZARDS. 389 

Saurians have representatives in every warm and temperate cli- 
mate. The crocodile, from its size and ferocity, claims the first 
place. There are three genera of this family, all amphihioas, 
living in rivers, or in their estuaries : the Crocodile, properly speak- 
ing, common to the old and new continents ;^* the Alligator or 
Caiman, peculiar to America ; and the Gavial, which comes nearer 
to the form of certain fossil crocodiles than any other, is limited to 
the Ganges and other great rivers of India. The various species 
of crocodiles are confined to local habitations: three are Asiatic ; 
two African, one of which is only in Sierra Leone ; two are pecu- 
liar to Madagascar ; and in America there are two species of croco- 
diles and five of alligators. The American crocodiles inhabit the 
estuaries of great rivers, a species is to be met with which ascends 
as high as 3000 feet at the base of the Andes of Quito.^^ 

The aUigators of the Mississippi, and of the rivers and marshes 
of Carolina, are more ferocious than those of South America, 
attacking men and animals ; they only prey in the night ; while 
in the water, like all their congeners, they cannot swallow their 
food, but they drown the animal they have caught, hide it under 
water till it is putrid, and then bring it to land to eat it. Locality 
has considerable influence on the nature and habits of these ani- 
mals ; in one spot they are very dangerous, while in another, at 
no great distance, they are cowardly. Alligators are rarely more 
than 15 feet long, and are seen in large herds basking on the banks 
of rivers ; their cry is like the roar of a bull ; in a storm they bel- 
low loudly, and are said to be much afraid of some of the Vv^hale 
family that ascend the great American rivers. The female watches 
her eggs and her young for months, never losing sight of them ; 
but the male devours many of them when the}^ go into the water. 
All animals of this class are covered with scales ; those of the cro- 
codile famJly are hard, horny, often osseous, and impenetrable. 

Lizards are chiefly distinguished from crocodiles by having a 
long, thin, forked tongue like that of the viper ; by their rapid 
motions, smaller size, and by some peculiarities of form. 

The monitors, which are entirely confined to the old continent, 

■^^ One of the most celebrated species of this division is the crocodile 
of the Nile, which probably is to be met with in the western branch of 
that river, the Bahr-el-Abiad, as high as 4000 feet. Immense numbers 
of this species, of every size and age, are found embalmed in the cata- 
combs of the ancient Egyptians, which are perfectly identical \yith the 
existing species, and olfering another proof of the important fact first 
announced by Cuvier, from his examination of the mummies of the ibis, 
that no animal, in its wild state, had presented the least change, within 
the longest historical periods. 

75 Mr. Pentland informs me that crocodiles are found in some of the 
rivers of Bolivia at a much greater elevation. 
33*^ 



390 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

have the tail compressed laterally, which enables them to swim 
rapidly : and they are furnished with strong sharp teeth. Many 
species inhabit Africa and India, especially the Indian Archipe- 
lago : the terrestrial crocodile of Herodotus is common on the de- 
serts which surround Egypt ; and an aquatic species in the Nile, 
which devours the crocodile's eggs, is often represented on the 
ancient Egyptian monuments. 

Another group of the monitor family is peculiarly American ; 
some of the species inhabiting the marshes in Guiana are 6 feet 
long.76 

Lizards are very common ; more than 63 species are European, 
of which 17 inhabit Italy, and one lives on the Alps at an eleva- 
vation of 4500 feet ; the iguanians, which differ from them only 
in the form of the tongue, are so numerous in genera and species, 
that it would be in vain to attempt to follow all their ramifications, 
which are nevertheless distributed accorcling to the same laws with 
other creatures : but the dragons, only found in India, are too sin- 
gular to be passed over. The dragon is in fact a lizard with wings 
of skin, which are spread along its sides and attached to its fore 
and hind feet, hke those of the bat, and, though they do not enable 
it to fly, they act like a parachute when the animal leaps from 
bough to bough in pursuit of insects. Nocturnal lizards of many 
species inhabit the hot countries of both continents ; they are not 
unlike salamanders, but they have sharp claws, which they can 
draw in and conceal like those of a cat, and seize their prey. One 
of this species, the Gecko, climbs on walls in all the countries round 
the Mediterranean. Chameleons are frequent in northern Africa ; 
and several species inhabit different districts and islands in Asia: 
the only European species is found in Spain ; it is common to 
North Africa. 

The anohs, which lives on trees, replaces the chameleon in the 
hot regions of South America and in the Antilles, having the pro- 
perty common to chameleons of changing its colour, but it is a 
more nimble and beautiful animal. In New Holland, where every- 
thing is anomalous, there is a lizard with a leaf-shaped tail. 

Skinks resemble serpents in form, but with four very short feet 

and sharp nails on their claws ; they burrow in the sands of Africa 

and Arabia: there is a species of gigantic black and yellow skink 

in New Holland, and those in the islands of the Indian Archipe- 

"lago are green, with blue tails. 

■'^ Animals of a gigantic size, and allied to the lizard family, formerly 
inhabited the latitudes of Britain. A monster (the JMosasaurus) much 
surpassing the largest living crocodile is found in our Sussex chalk-beds; 
and an animal allied to the Iguana, the iguanodon of Mantell, is of fre- 
quent occurrence in the strata upon which the chalk reposes in the weald 
of Sussex, the Isle 9f Wight, &c. Some bones of the iguanodon would 
indicate an animal rhore than 50 feet long. 



TURTLES. 391' 

Two anomalous saurians of the genus Amblyrhinchus were dis- 
covered by Mr. Darwin in the Galapagos Archipelago. One found 
only in the central islands is terrestrial, and in many places it has 
undermined the ground with its burrows; the other is the only 
lizard known that lives on sea-weed and inhabits the sea; it is 
about four feet long, and hideously ugly, with feet partially webbed, 
and a tail compressed laterally. It basks on the beach, and in its 
marine habits and food it resembles, on a small scale, the huge 
monsters of a former creation. 

Tortoises are covered with a shell or buckler, but their head, 
legs, and tail are free, covered with a wrinkled skin, and the ani- 
mal can draw them into the shell when alarmed. The head is 
sometimes defended by a regular shield, and the jaws, instead of 
teeth, have a horny case. The upper buckler is rounded, and 
formed of eight pairs of plates symmetrically disposed, and often 
very beautiful ; the under shell is flat, and consists of four pair of 
bones and one in the centre. One family of tortoises is terrestrial, 
two others are amphibious, one of which lives in fresh water, the 
other in tropical and warm seas. 

There are more land tortoises in Africa than in all the rest of 
the world, both specifically and individually. They abound also 
in the great Sunda Islands, in the United States of America, South 
America, and especially Brazil. There are a few European spe- 
cies, of which the common tortoise (Testuno Grseca), which is 
found in all the countries round the Mediterranean, is the largest, 
being about a foot long; it lives on insects and vegetables, and 
burrows in the ground in winter. Some of the East Indian species 
are enormously large, above three feet long, and remarkable for 
the beautiful distribution of their colours ; certain species are pecu- 
liar to Brazil, one to Demerara, and one to North America; but 
perhaps the largest known species is that of the Galapagos Islands, 
the Testudo Indicus, which attains 500 or 600 pounds in weight. 

There are two families of the fresh water tortoises that live in 
ponds and ditches. The emys is very numerous in America ; there 
are 15 species peculiar to the northern part of the continent, and 
four to the southern : only one has been found in Africa, two in 
Europe, and eight in Asia. The Emys caspia, in Asia xMinor, 
follows a leader, and plunges into the water when alarmed. The 
Chelydse are found in the South American rivers. 

The trionyx, or fresh-water turtle, lives in the great rivers and 
lakes in warm countries ; there are two species peculiar to North 
America; they are very large and voracious, devouring birds, rep- 
tiles, and young crocodiles, and often are a prey to old ones. One 
is peculiar to the Nile, one to the Euphrates ; there are four spe- 
cies in the Ganges, which are constantly seen eating the bodies of 
the natives that are thrown into the sacred stream; one of these 



39^ PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

turtles often weighs 240 pounds. The starred trionyx is in the 
rivers of Java only, and another kind is common also to the rivers 
of Borneo and Sumatra. 

The Cheloniansjor sea-turtles, live in the seas of the torrid and 
temperate zones, to the 50th parallel of latitude, some eating alg^, 
and others small marine animals. Different species are found in 
different parts of the ocean. The green turtle, of which there are 
many varieties, inhabits the intertropical Atlantic ; they may be 
seen eating sea-weed at the bottom of the water along the coasts, 
and they come in great shoals to the mouths of rivers to lay their 
eggs in the sand from distances of many hundred miles. This 
turtle is often six or seven feet long, and weighs 600 or 700 
pounds ; it is much esteemed for food, but the shell is of no value. 

The hawk's-bill turtle, which yields the tortoise-shell, is caught 
among the Molucca Islands, and on the north-western coast of JNew 
Guinea. There is also a fishery in the western hemisphere at 
Haiti and the Caiman Islands, but the shell is less valuable than 
that from the east. There are two species in the Mediterranean, 
which are only valued for the oil. 

With respect to the whole class of reptiles it may be observed, 
that not one species is common to the Old and New World, and 
few are common to North and South America; those in New 
Holland are altogether peculiar ; and, as far as is at present 
known, with the exception of Marianne Islands, there are neither 
toads, frogs, nor snakes in any of the islands of Oceanica, though 
the Indian Arcihpelago abounds in them ; neither are they found 
in Tierra del Fuego, in the Straits of Magellan, nor in the Falk- 
land Islands. 

Five species of reptiles only appear to have existed in Ireland 
before its geological separation from England — -a lizard, a frog, a 
toad, and two tritons. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 



Distribution of Birds in the Arctic Region — In Europe, Asia, Africa, 
America, and the Antarctic Eegions. 

More than 6000 species of birds are known, which are arranged 
in six natural orders or groups, namely. Birds of prey — or vul- 
tures, eagles, hawks ; CHmbers, including parrots and wood- 
peckers : Songsters, the most numerous of all the six; Gallina- 
ceous birds, including our domestic fowls, partridges, grouse, and 
pheasants ; Waders — herons, snipes, curlews ; and Swimmers, 



DISTRIBUTION OF BIRDS. 39^' 

or web-footed birds. Next to tropical America, Europe is richest 
in species : the greatest number of birds of prey inhabit Europe 
and America, which last surpasses every country in the number 
of songsters and chmbers. 

There is great similarity in the birds of the northern parts of 
the old and new continents, and many are identical. Towards 
the south, the forms differ more and more, til] in the tropical and 
south temperate zones of Asia, Africa, and America, they become 
entirely different, whole families and genera often being stationary 
within very narrow limits. Some birds, however, are almost 
universal, especially birds of prey, waders, and sea-fowl. 

The bald buzzard is to be met with in every country from 
Europe to Australia ; the Chinese gosshawk inhabits the Ame- 
rican continent, and every station between China and the west 
coast of Europe ; the peregrine falcon lives in Europe, America, 
and Australia ; the common and purple herons are indigenous in 
the old continent and the new ; and the flamingo of different species 
fishes in almost every tropical river, and in the Andes to the height 
of 13,000 feet. Many of the sea-fowl also are widely spread : the 
wagel-gull is at home in the northern and southern oceans. Captain 
Beechy's ship was accompanied by pintadoes, or Cape pigeons, 
during a voyage of 500 miles in the Pacific ; and even the com- 
mon house-sparrow is as much at home in the villages in Bengal 
as it is in Britain. Many more instances might be given, but they 
do not interfere with the general law of special distribution. 

Birds migrate to very great distances in search of food, passing 
the winter in one country and the summer in another, many 
breeding in both. In cold climates, insects die or hybernate 
during winter ; between the tropics they either perish or sleep 
in the dry season : so that, in both cases, insect-eating birds are 
compelled to migrate. When the ground is covered with snow, 
the want of corn and seeds forces those kinds whose food is 
vegetable to seek it elsewhere ; and in tropical countries the 
annual inundations of the rivers regulate the migrations of birds 
that feed on fish. 

Some migrate singly, some in groups, others in flocks of thou- 
sands ; and, in most instances, the old and the young birds go 
separately. Those that fly in company generally have a leader, 
and such as fly in smaller numbers observe a certain order. Wild 
swans fly in the form of a wedge, wild geese in a line. Some 
birds are silent in their flight, others utter constant cries, espe- 
cially those that migrate daring night, to keep the flock together, 
as herons, goat-suckers, and rails. 

Birds of passage in confinement show the most insurmountable 
disquietude when the time of migration draws near. The Cana- 
dian duck rushes impetuously to the north at the usual period of 



394". PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

summer flight. Redbreasts, goldfinches, and orioles, brought from 
Canada to the United States, when young, dart northwards, as if 
guided by the compass, as soon as they are set at liberty. Birds 
return to the same place year after year. Storks and swallows 
take possession of their former nests, and the times of their depar- 
ture are exact even to a day. Various European birds spend 
the winter in Asia and Africa ; while many natives of these 
countries come to central Europe in summer. 

The birds of passage in America are more numerous, both in 
species and individually, than in any other country. Ducks, 
geese, and pigeons migrate in myriads from the severity of the 
northern winters ; and when there is a failure of grain in the 
south, different families of birds go the north. The Virginian 
partridge crosses the Delaware and goes to Pennsylvania when 
grain is scarce in New Jersey ; but it is so heavy on the wing, 
that many fall into the river, and end the journey by swimming. 

The same thing happens to the wild turkey, which is caught 
in hundreds as it arrives wet on the banks of the Ohio, Missouri, 
and Mississippi. These birds are not fitted for long flight by 
their structure, because their bones have fewer of those air-cells 
which give buoyancy to the feathered tribes. The number of 
air-cells is greatest in birds that have to sustain a continued and 
rapid flight ; probably the extremes are to be met with in the 
swift and the ostrich — the one ever on the wing, the other never. 
The strength of the ostrich is in the muscles of its legs ; while 
the muscles on the breast of the swift weigh more than all the 
rest of the body ; hence, it flies at the rate of 100 miles an hour 
easily. The wild duck and wild pigeon fly between 400 and 
500 miles in a dayj The stork, and some other migratory birds, 
do not halt till the end of their journey. Many sea-fowl are never 
seen to rest ; and all the eagles, vultures, and hawks are birds of 
strong flight, and capable of sustaining themselves at heights 
beyond the reach of less buoyant creatures. 

DISTRIBUTION OF ARCTIC AND EUROPEAN BIRDS. 

The birds of Europe and North America are better known 
than those of any part of the globe. New species are constantly 
discovered in Asia, Africa, and South America ; and extensive 
regions in the East are yet unexplored : however, about 6000 
have already been described. 

There are 503 species of birds in Europe, many of which are dis- 
tributed over Asia and Africa, without any apparent variation ; and 
100 of our European species are also in North America. Of these, 
90 are land-birds, 28 waders, and 62 water-fowl; among which 



WADERS— SWIMMERS. 395 

are most of the marine birds of northern Europe, which, like all 
sea-fowl, have a wider range. 

More than three-fourth of the species, and a much larger pro- 
portion of individuals, of the birds of Greenland, Iceland, and 
Feroe, are more or less aquatic, and many of the remainder are 
only occasional visitors. Of the few small birds, the greater 
number are British ; but many that reside constantly in Britain 
are migratory in Iceland and Feroe, and all the small birds leave 
Greenland in winter. The Aquilla albicilla, or fishing eagle, is 
the largest bird of these northern islands ; it feeds on salmon and 
trout, and builds its nest on the boldest crags. The jer-falcon, or 
Falco Islandicus, though native, is rare even in Iceland. The 
snowy owl lives near the glaciers in the interior of Greenland, 
and is sometimes seen in Orkney. Particular kinds of grouse 
are peculiar to high latitudes, as the ptarmigan or white grouse. 
The Columba asneas lives on all the rocky coasts of Europe, and 
it is also an American bird. The crow family are inhabitants of 
every part of the globe. The common crow is very generally 
distributed ; the carrion-crow and jackdaw are all over Europe 
and North America. The Royston crow is the only one of the 
genus within the Arctic circle, and but a summer visitor. The 
magpie is everywhere in Europe. The Jay, one of the most beau- 
tiful birds of its tribe, is found in Europe, North America, and 
China. The raven is everywhere, from Greenland to the Cape 
of Good Hope, and from Hudson's Bay to Mexico ; it is capable 
of enduring the extremes of heat and cold, and is larger, stronger, 
and more ravenous in the Arctic islands than anywhere else. It 
is said to destroy lambs, and to drive the eider-ducks from their 
nests to take their eggs or young : they unite in flocks to chase 
intruding birds from their abode. 

Waders are more numerous than land-birds in the Arctic 
regions. The snipe and the golden plover are mere visitors ; 
and the oyster-catcher remains all the year in Iceland: it makes 
its nest near streams, and wages war with the crow tribe. The 
heron, curlew, plover, and most of the other waders, emigrate ; 
sand-pipers and the water-ousel remain all the year round. 

Web-footed birds, being clothed with down and oily feathers, 
are best able to resist the cold of a polar climate. The Cygnus 
musicus, or whistling swan, is the largest migratory bird of Europe 
or America. It is 5 feet long from the tip of the bill to the end 
of the tail, and 8 feet from tip to tip of the wings : its plumage is 
pure white, tinged orange or yellow on the head. Some of them 
winter in Iceland; and in the long Arctic night their song is 
heard, as they pass in flocks: it is like the notes of a violin. 
Various species of the duck tribe live in the far north, in pro- 
digious multitudes. The mallard, supposed to be the origin of 



396 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

our tame duck, is everywhere in the Arctic lands. There are 
two species of eider-duck : the king duck, or Somateria specta- 
bilis, one of these, is widely dispersed over the islands and coasts 
of the North Atlantic, and all the Arctic land and islands in 
Europe and America. In Europe its most southern building- 
place is the Fern Islands on the coasts of Northumberland ; in 
America it never goes south of New York. It hves in the open 
sea in winter, and resorts to the coast when the grass begins to 
grow. The duck makes her nest of sea-weed, lined with down 
from her breast. The islanders take the eggs and down twice 
in the season ; but they do not kill the old birds, because the down 
of a dead duck is of no value, having lost its elasticity. The 
third time the drake repairs the nest with down from his breast : 
the birds are allowed to hatch their brood; and, as soon as the 
young can feed themselves, they are taken out to sea by the 
duck. They attain maturity in 4 years, and then measure 2 feet 
from tip to tip of the wing. The same couple has been known 
to frequent a nest 20 years, and the Icelanders think the eider- 
duck lives to 100. 

The cormorant, which lives on fish, is universal in the northern 
seas, and is scarcely ever eaten by the natives. It sits singly, 
or sometimes in flocks, on the rocks, watching the fish with its 
keen eye : it plunges after them, and pursues them for three or 
four minutes under water. Auks are very numerous, especially 
the razor-billed auk, or penguin ; but the great auk, which is 
incapable of flight with its little wings, is now nearly extinct in 
the Arctic islands. The tern, or sea-swallow, is seen everywhere 
in these seas, skimming along the surface of the water, catching 
moluscas and small fish. Gulls of many species, and in count- 
less numbers, are inhabitants of the Arctic regions, whilst in the 
Antarctic they are represented by the equally numerous genus of 
Procellaria, of which the Mother-Cary's-chicken or stormy petrel 
is the type. No birds are more widely dispersed than these two 
genera. They are at home, and brave the storm, in every lati- 
tude and in every sea ; but those in the north are said to be 
larger and more numerous than elsewhere. There are nine or 
ten species in the Arctic regions, and the most numerous of 
these probably are the kittywakes, the 3''oung of which cover the 
rocks in Iceland, packed so close together that 50 are killed at a 
shot. 

The skua is one of the boldest and most rapacious of -birds, 
forming a link between gulls and birds of prey. It lives by rob- 
bing other birds, and is so audacious that it forces the gulls to 
disgorge the fish they have swallowed, and has been seen to kill 
a puffin at a single blow. Its head-quarters are in Feroe, Shet- 
land, and the Hebrides, where it hatches its brood, and. attacks 
animals if they come near them. 



GREGARIOUS MARINE BIRDS. 397 

A few species of petrel inhabit the Arctic seas, but the South 
Pacific and the Antarctic seas are the favourite resort of this 
genus. They take their name from the facuky they have of 
walking on the water,77 which they do by the aid of their flat 
webbed feet and widely-extended wings. The stormy petrels, 
consisting of several distinct species, confounded by sailors under 
the name of tempest-bird or Mother-Cary's-chicken, are the most 
widely diffused, about the size of a swallow, and nearly of the 
same colour as the latter ; their flight is rapid ; they shelter 
themselves from the storm in the hollow of a wave, and go to 
land only at the breeding season. 

It is observed that all birds living on islands fly against the 
wind when they go to sea, so as to have a fair wind when they 
return home tired. The direction of the prevailing winds, con- 
sequently, has great influence on the choice of their abode : for 
example, the 25 bird-rocks, or Vogel-berg, in Feroe, face the 
west or north-west ; and no bird frequents the cliffs facing the 
east, though the situation is to all appearance equally good ; a 
preference accounted for by the prevalence of westerly wind in 
these latitudes. 

Most marine birds are gregarious. They build their nests on 
the same rock, and live in society. Of this a curious instance 
occurs on the rocks in question. The Fugle-berg lies in a fright- 
ful chasm among the cliffs of Westmanshavn in Feroe. The 
chasm is encompassed by rocks 1000 feet high, and myriads of 
sea-fowl cluster round the top of the crags ; but different kinds 
have separate habitations ; and no race or individual leaves his 
own quarters, or ventures to intrude upon his neighbours. 

Upon some low rocks, scarcely rising above the surface of the 
water, sits the glossy cormorant ; the predatory skuas, on a higher 
shelf, are anxiously regarded by myriads of kittywakes on nests 
in crowded rows along the shelving rock above, with nothing 
visible but the heads of the mothers almost touching one another; 
the auks and guillemots are seated a stage higher on the narrow 
shelves, in order as on a parade, with their white breasts facing 
the sea, and in absolute contact. The puffins form the summit 
of this feathered pyramid, perched on the highest station, and 
scarcely discernible from its height, if they did not betray them- 
selves by flying backwards and forwards. Some of these tribes 
have a watch posted to look out for their safety ; and such confi- 
dence has the flock in his vigilance, that if he is taken the rest 
are easily caught. When the whole take flight, the ear is stunned 
by their discordant screams. 

The greater part of the marine birds of the Arctic seas are in- 

" Petrel, from St. Peter. 
34 



398 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

habitants also of the northern coasts of the continent of Europe 
and of the British islands. 

No part of Europe is richer in birds than Britain, both in species 
and numbers of individuals ; and the larger game is so abundant, 
that no one thinks of eating nightingales and redbreasts. Of the 
503 species of European birds, 277 are native in our islands. 
The common grouse, the yellow and pied wagtails, and the Eng- 
lish starhn^, are found nowhere else. It is probable that most of 
the British birds came from Germany before the separation of our 
island from the continent, and many of short flight never reached 
Ireland. The ptarmigan and capercailzie came from Norway. 

There are five European vultures : the lemmergeyer of the 
Alps and Pyrenees builds its nest in the most inaccessible parts 
of the mountains, and is seldom seen; it lives also in the moun- 
tains of Ab3''ssinia and on the Mongolian steppes. Ten eagles 
are European ; one is peculiar to Sardinia ; and several of them 
are common in America: the golden eagle is one ; that beautiful 
bird, which once gave a characteristic wildness to our Scotch 
mountains, and the distinguishing feather to the bonnet of our 
chieftains, is now nearly extirpated. The osprey or fishing eagle 
is equally an inhabitant of Europe and America, and so are some 
of our numerous hawks ; among others the jer or gentil falcon 
has been so much destroyed, that it is now rare even in Iceland, 
its native place : there are still a few in Scotland, and several are 
caught in their migratory flight over the Low Countries, and 
reclaimed by the expert falconers for the now nearly obsolete 
sport of falconry. 

The owl tribe is numerous, and many of them are very hand- 
some. The Bubo maximus, the great owl, the largest of nocturnal 
birds, inhabits the forests of middle and southern Europe ; it is 
rare in France and England, though not uncommon in Ireland 
and Orkney : in Italy a small owl is tamed and used as a decoy. 

Owls, eagles, and hawks, have representatives in every country, 
but of different species. The two species of European Goat- 
suckers migrate to Africa in winter ; their peculiar cry may be 
heard on a moonlight night when a large flock takes wing for the 
journey. Several of our swallows go to Africa ; both our king- 
fishers are African, and only visit us in summer; one, the Alcedo 
ispida, is a native of Lower Egypt and the shores of the Red Sea. 
Some of the 7 species of European creeping birds, or certhias, 
creep on the trunks and branches of trees in search of insects ; 
others pursue their prey clinging to the face of rocks and walls, 
supported by the stiff' elastic feathers of the tail : the hoopoe, an 
inhabitant of southern Europe, is also a creeper, but it pursues 
small reptiles and insects on the ground. 

The Fringillae or thick-billed birds are by much the most cha- 



SYLVIAS—THICK-BILLED BIRDS. 399 

racteristic of Europe ; to them belong our finest songsters. The 
Sylvias have soft beaks, and feed on insects and worms ; the 
nightingale, the redbreast, the wren, the smallest of European 
birds, the warblers, white-throat, and others, are of this family 
Thick-billed birds live on seed, as the common sparrow, the gold 
and other finches, linnets, buntings, and crossbeaks. 

Four species of fly-catchers are peculiar to Europe, and five 
species of shrikes. Ravens, crows, jays, and magpies are every- 
where ; the Alpine crow and nutcracker are found in central 
Europe only. Compared with America the starling family is 
poor, and the woodpecker race still more so, yet we have six 
species, some of which are very beautiful. There is only one 
cuckoo entirely European, the other two kinds only come acci- 
dentally, and all are birds of passage. There are four species of 
the pigeon tribe ; the ringdove frequents the larch forests, and is 
migratory; the stockdove also leaves us in October; the biset or 
rock pigeon, supposed to be the origin from which the infinite 
variety of our domestic pigeons has sprung, flies in flocks, and 
makes its flimsy nest on trees and rocks ; it is also found in the 
Da-ouria part of the Ahai chain. Of gallinaceous birds there are 
many ; the only native pheasant is in the south-western parts of 
the continent ; and the capercailzie, extinct in the British forests, 
inhabits many parts of Europe ; in Scandinavia especially it is 
plentiful as far as the pine-tree grows, which is nearly to North 
Cape, and also in the Russian forests. The hazel grouse frequents 
the pine and aspen forests in central and northern Europe, where 
the black cock also is plentiful. Five species of grouse and six 
of partridges afford abundance of game ; four of the latter are 
confined to the southern parts of the continent, and so are the 
sand and pentailed grouse, which form a separate family ; the 
former inhabits the sterile plains of Andalusia and Granada, and 
the latter the stony uncultivated parts of France, southern Italy, 
and Sicily. The Ortigis Gibraltarica is a peculiar bird allied to 
to the grouse family, found in the south of Europe only. 

European waders are very numerous, and among them there 
are specimens of all the genera ; woodcocks, snipes, plovers, cur- 
lews, and grebes, are very abundant, and herons of various 
species ; three of them are egrets or crested herons, and the 
common heron now assembles on the tops of trees unmolested, 
since the progress of agriculture has rendered the country 
unfit for hawking. Several cranes and storks, and two species 
of ibis, are European : a species of flamingo is met with in 
the south-eastern parts of the continent, and in the maremme 
on the east coast of Italy. Many of the waders, however, 
migrate in winter. The stork, so great a favourite in Holland 
that it is specially protected, is a wanderer ; it retires to Asia 



400 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

Minor, and on the return of summer resumes its old nest on 
a chimney-top, breeding in both countries. About 139 species 
of European birds either live in the more elevated parts of the 
Alps, or cross them in their annual migrations. They generally 
take their flight by the great St. Bernard, the pass of St. Theodule, 
the Simplon, and St. Gothard. Europe is particularly rich in 
web-footed birds ; there are three species of wild swans, four of 
Avild geese, and more than 30 of the dack tribe, including the 
inhabitants of the Arctic seas. 



BIRDS OF ASIA AND THE INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. 

European birds are widely spread over Asia; most of the 
Arctic sea-fowl frequent its northern coasts : between 50 and 60 
European birds are also Siberian, and there are above 70 Euro- 
pean species in Japan and Corea, which probably are also inha- 
bitants of Siberia and the Altai Mountains, and several are identical 
with the birds of North America; so that the same affinity pre- 
vails in the feathery tribes of the Arctic regions as in the vegetable 
productions. 

Asia Minor is a country of transition, and many European birds 
are mixed with those of warmer regions, as the Halcyon smyr- 
nensis, a large bird with gorgeous plumage, identical with the 
great Bengal kingfisher, general throughout India. European 
birds also inhabit the Caucasus, the shores of the Caspian Sea, 
and Persia. Moreover, these warmer climates are the winter- 
quarters of various European species. 

In Asia Minor, and especially in Armenia, the number and 
variety of birds is very great ; large eagles, vultures, falcons, buz- 
zards, quails, partridges, starlings, herons, storks, cranes, legions 
of Arctic grebes, swans, wild geese, ducks, and pelicans, are 
natives of these countries ; besides singing-birds, the nightingale, 
the constant theme of the poet's song, abounds in Persia : hawks 
are trained for hunting deer in that country, and the Asiatic par- 
tridges, or francolins, more vividly coloured than ours, differ also 
in having beaks fitted for digging up bulbous roots, which is their 
food in the deserts. 

Farther east the types become more Indian ; the great penin- 
sulas on each side of the Ganges are the habitations of the most 
peculiar and the most gorgeous of birds. Many species, and 
some entire genera, of kingfishers are here, of the gaudiest 
colouring ; the plumage of the fly-catchers has the richest 
metalUc lustre ; and the shrikes, of a sober hue with us, are 
there decked in the brightest colours ; the drongo has a coat of 
ultramarine, and the calyptomene has one of emerald green. 



BIRDS OF ASIA. 401 

The large-beaked climbing-birds are singularly handsome. 
The great green parrot, so easily taught to speak, has inhabited 
the Indian forests and the banks of the Ganges time out of mind, 
with a host of congeners of every colour ; not one species of 
these, or indeed of the whole parrot tribe, is common to Asia, 
Africa, America, or Australia, nor even to any two of these 
great continents. They are vividly coloured in India, but the 
cuckoo tribe rivals them ; several genera of these birds exist 
nowhere else, as the large-beaked Malcahos, the Coucals with 
their stiff feathers, and the Couroucous or Trogons, dressed in 
vermilion and gold ; the last, however, also inhabit other tropical 
climates. 

Eastern Asia is distinguished by the variety of its gallinaceous 
birds and the gorgeousness of their plumage. To this country 
we owe our domestic fowls ; and two species of peacock are wild 
in the woods of India and Ceylon. The Polyplectron, the only 
bird of its kind, and the Tragopons, are Indian ; and some of the 
most brilliant birds of the East are among the pheasant tribe, of 
which five species are peculiar to China and Tibet. There are 
various species of the pheasant in the Himalaya, and one whose 
feathers have a metallic lustre. The gold, the silver, and Reeves' 
pheasant, the tail-feathers of which are four feet long, belong to 
China. The Lophophorus refulgens, and some others of that 
genus, are altogether Indian. 

The pigeons also are very splendid in their plumage ; they 
mostly belong to China and Japan ; those in the Birman empire 
are green. 

It would be vain to enumerate the fine birds that range in the 
forests, or fish in the rivers, of the Asiatic continent, yet the birds 
of the Indian Archipelago far surpass them in splendour of plu- 
mage ; these islands indeed are the abode of the most gorgeously 
arrayed birds in existence. Even in Java and Sumatra, though 
most similar to India in their winged innabitants, there are many 
peculiar, especially 12 or 13 species of the chmbing tribe, and 
several of the honey-sucking kind; but the dissimilarity increases 
with the distance, as in New Guinea and its islands, where the 
honey-sucking genera are developed in novel forms and sump- 
tuous plumage. 

In the various islands of the archipelago there are altogether 'at 
least 15 genera, with their numerous species, found there only. 
There are the Cassicans, which resemble jays, with plumage of 
metallic lustre ; the only two species of Pirolls, one bright violet, 
the other of brilliant green ; various species of Buceros with 
large horned beaks, Oriols of vivid colours, the swallow that 
builds the edible nest, the most numerous and splendid Sylvias, 
and all the species but one of the Philedons or honcy-sucking 
34* 



402 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

birds with tongues that end in a brush. Birds of Paradise of 
many kinds inhabit New Guinea and the neighbouring Moluccas 
and Aroo Islands. They are birds of passage, and change their 
quarters with the monsoon. The king bird of paradise has two 
long slender filaments from the tail, ending in a curled flat web of 
emerald green, and the male of the green species has long flow- 
ing plumes from the sides of his body, which give him a magnifi- 
cent appearance. The pigeons are peculiarly beautiful and 
numerous, but limited in their abode. The Gouroa, or great 
crowned pigeon, the largest of its tribe, is an inhabitant of Borneo. 
Each island has its own species of Louries, which exist nowhere 
else ; many peculiar paroquets and cockatoos, couroucous or tro- 
gons, coucals, and the barbu, with huge beaks, are all peculiar to 
these islands. Even the partridges have thrown aside their 
grave colours and assumed the vivid hues of the tropics, as the 
green and tufted Cryptonyx. But the other gallinaceous birds 
far surpass them, as the fire and the Argus pheasant, and two or 
three species still more splendid, with a host of other birds already 
known, and multitudes which Europeans never have seen, in the 
deep jungles and impenetrable forests of these unexplored islands. 
The Cassowary, a bird akin to the ostrich, without the power of 
flying, but fleet in its course, has a wide range in the Indian 
Archipelago and the south-eastern peninsula of Asia, and, though 
destitute of beauty, is interesting from its peculiar location and 
the character of the whole race. 



AFRICAN BIRDS. 

A greatnumber of European birds are also inhabitants of Africa, 
and many migrate there in winter, yet the birds of this continent 
are very peculiar and characteristic ; those in the north and north- 
east, and at the Cape of Good Hope, are best known, but the 
greater part of tropical Africa is still unexplored. It may be 
observed, generally, that the tropical birds difl?er from those of 
north Africa, but are, with a few exceptions, the same with those 
in the southern part of the continent, and the whole of Africa, 
south of the desert, differs in species from those of north and 
western Africa and from Europe. Moreover, there is a strong 
analogy, though no affinity, between the birds of Africa and 
America in the same parallels of latitude ; there is not a single 
perching bird common to the two, though some of the rapacious 
are in both. 

There are 59 species of birds of prey, of which a few are also 
European. The Secretary-bird is the most singular of this order: 
it preys upon serpents at the Cape of Good Hope, in Abyssinia, 



AFRICAN BIRDS. 403 

and other parts of the continent. Africa possesses at least 300 
species of the passerine order, of which 10 genera, with all their 
species, are peculiarly its own. The swallows are more beauti- 
ful than ours, especially the Cecropis striata, with two tail-feathers 
twice as long as its body. Many kingfishers, the most beautifully 
coloured of their brilliant race, frequent the lakes and rivers : four 
species of Hoopoes, one of which visits Europe in summer, are 
natives ; and the honey-birds, the representatives of the humming- 
birds of South America, are peculiarly African. They abound at 
the Cape of Good Hope, where the nectaries of proteas and other 
plants produce the sacccharine juice which is their food. The 
Malurus Africanus, and many other singing-birds, for the most 
part unknown elsewhere, inhabit the forests. The canary-bird 
is confined to the Canary Islands ; its song differs even in two 
adjacent districts : there are, however, other instances of this. 
The Capirote, also indigenous in the Canary Islands, is a finer 
songster, but it cannot be tamed. Various shrikes are peculiar 
to Africa, but the species known as the grand Baratra is confined 
to the Azores. There are several birds of the raven tribe, or 
nearly akin to them : as the Lampratornis superba ; another with 
purple wings, the Buphaga, the only bird of its genus ; and 
several species of the Calaos. The weaving-bird, or Loxia 
textor, is one of the most remarkable of the graminivorous tribe ; 
it weaves its nest with grass and twigs very dexterously ; one 
brought to Europe wove a quantity of thread among the wires of 
its cage, with great assiduity, into a strong texture. The Widow- 
bird, the Callous, the blue bee-eatei', and all the fly-catching 
touracous, with many species of woodpeckers, are found nowhere 
else. The parrots and paroquets, which swarm in the tropical 
forests, from the size of a hen to that of a sparrow, are of original 
forms. The Trogons, or Couroucous, the most beautiful of the 
large-beaked climbing-birds, are the same as in Asia ; but the 
Barbu and the four species of Barbicans are altogether African, 
and so are some of the cuckoos. Among the latter are two 
species of the Cuculus indicator, so named from indicating where 
the bees have their nests ; one is peculiar to Abyssinia, the other 
to the interior at the Cape of Good Hope ; and mocking-birds are 
spread over a wide extent of this continent. 

There are at least 13 species of African pigeons ; and to Africa 
we are indebted for the guinea-fowl, of which there are three or 
four kinds : it wanders in flocks of hundreds among the brush- 
wood on the banks of rivers and lakes in Numidia and all the 
tropical regions, and they are even more abundant in Madagascar. 
Many grouse and partridges are peculiar, especially the Gangas, 
of which there are five species ; some go in coveys, and others 
traverse the deserts in flocks of many hundreds. The sand- 



404 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

grouse, one of this family, is much more abundant on the arid 
deserts of north Africa than in Europe ; and the partridges of this 
country are francolins, which feed on bulbous roots. 

The Ostrich takes the wide range of Africa and Arabia ; the 
bird of the desert, and bustards, also wanderers in the plains, are 
numerous : the most peculiar are the rhaad and the Otis kori, in 
south Africa, five feet high, and remarkable for the brilliancy of 
its eye. 

Waders of infinite variety inhabit the rivers, lakes, and marshes 
• — woodcocks, snipes, plovers, storks, cranes, herons, and spoon- 
bills. The most peculiar are the Dromes and Marabous, whose 
feathers form a considerable article of commerce ; the cream- 
coloured plover, the Scorpus or ombrette, the water-treader of 
Abyssinia, and the Tantalus tribe, among which is the ibis (Tan- 
talus ibis), held sacred by the ancient Egyptians, so frequently 
found in mummies in the catacombs, and represented on their 
monuments. 

Swimming-birds are no less numerous : the Bernicla cyanaptera 
is a goose peculiar to Shoa ; the rhynchops and pelicans, several 
of the duck kind, or birds allied to them, are found nowhere else. 



BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA. 

Of 471 species of North American birds, about 100 are also 
found in Europe, the greater number of which are water-fowl, 
and those common to the northern coasts of both continents. The 
sea-fowl on the North Pacific and Behring's Straits are very much 
the same with those in the Greenland seas and the North Atlantic, 
but the great Auk or penguin, with featherless wings, still exists 
on the North Pacific, and the large white albatross, seldom seen 
in the North Atlantic, frequents Behring's Straits and the western 
coasts of North America in immense flocks. It is almost universal 
in the Pacific and in the stormy regions towards the southern pole. 
Like the Mother-Cary's-chicken, it is a bird of the tempest, sailing 
calmly on its huge wings in the most tremendous gales, and fol- 
lowing a ship a whole day without resting on the waves : it is the 
largest of winged sea-fowls ; some measure 14 feet from tip to tip 
of the wings. 

There is no vulture common to the two continents, but there 
are five eagles, half of the other birds of prey, a fourth part of the 
crow tribe, several waders and web-footed birds which inhabit 
both ; yet the general character of North American birds is dif- 
ferent from that of European : 81 American generic forms and 
two families are not found in Europe. The humming-birds are 
altogether American ; only four species are in North America ; 



BIRDS OF SOUTH AMERICA. 405 

one of these is migratory, and another is common to South America. 
The parrot family, distributed with generic differences in almost 
all tropical countries, has but one representative here, which lives 
in the forests of the Carolinas. Europe has nothing analogous to 
these two families. It is singular that a country with so many 
rivers and lakes should possess only one kingfisher. The woods 
are filled with many species of creeping birds, and there are 68 
peculiar species of sylvias and fly-catchers ; among others the 
Todus viridis, which forms a genus by itself. Ravens, crows, 
pies, and jays abound, and there are 13 species of starlings. The 
finch tribe are very numerous, and there are 16 species of wood- 
peckers, as might be expected in a country covered with forests. 
Of pigeons there are eight species, but individually they are 
innumerable, especially the Columba raigratoria, which passes 
over Canada and the northern States in myriads for successive 
days twice in the year. The poultry-yard is indebted to North 
America for the domestic turkey, which there ranges wild in its 
native woods, and attains great size. There are no partridges, 
properly speaking, and of 13 American species of grouse, three 
are probably European, a family which exists in every country 
under different forms. The vast expanse of water and marshy 
ground makes North America the home of water-fowl and 
waders without end. Most of the waders and graminivorous birds 
are migratory ; in winter they find no food north of the great 
lakes, where the ground is frozen upwards of six months in the 
year. Many pass the winter in California, as storks and cranes ; 
wild geese cover acres of ground near the sea, and when they 
take wing their clang is heard far off. Even gulls and other 
northern sea-fowl come to the coasts of California, and indeed to 
the shores of all the north and temperate Pacific. 

It may be said generally that, with regard to the web-footed 
tribe. North America possesses speciviiens of all the genera of the 
old world, and many peculiarly its own. The table-Jand of 
Mexico has some peculiar forms, and some species of swimming- 
birds found only in more northern latitudes ; but, except the 
Ampelidoe, there are representatives of every group of North and 
South America. 



BIRDS OF SOUTH AMERICA. 

The tenants of the air in South America differ more from those 
in North America than these do from the birds of Europe: there 
are not more than 50 or 60 species in common. South America 
has a greater variety of original forms than any other country ; 
more than 25 genera, with all their species, inhabit that country 



406 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

only ; of the passerine family alone there are at least 1000 spe- 
cies, all peculiar to it. The vultures are of different genera from 
those in Europe ; the Condor of the Andes is the largest of these ; 
it frequents the highest pinnacles of the Andes in summer, and 
builds its nest at the height of 15,000 feet and more above the 
sea ; and Baron Humboldt savir it wheeling in circles at the ele- 
vation of 22,000 feet. It inhabits the Andes from the Straits of 
Magellan to 7° N. lat., but it never crosses the isthmus of Panama, 
the condor of California being a smaller bird. It roams over the 
plains of Patagonia even to the mouth of the Rio Negro, and in 
winter it descends in groups to feed on the plains and sea-shore ; 
and, like all the vulture race, it possesses the faculty of descrying 
a dead or dying animal from a very great distance. Although 
the condor lives principally on dead animals and carrion, it will 
spmetimes attack live animals ; its habits are those of our ordi- 
nary vulture ; much exaggeration has found its way into books 
as to its size and ferocity ; the most remarkable point in its his- 
tory is the great vertical extent in which it is known to live, from 
the level of the sea, to an elevation of 22,000 feet. The Vultur 
papa, or king of the vultures, an inhabitant of the tropical regions, 
is remarkable for the bright blue and vermilion colour of the head 
and neck ; the black vulture lives in large assemblages on the 
tops of high trees in the sylvas of Brazil ; another numerous 
species prey on animals in the llanos. Many other rapacious 
birds are peculiar to this continent ; the burrowing owl, so com- 
mon in the Pampas and Chile, is one of these. The Guachero 
forms a genus by itself ; it is of the size of a common fowl, with 
the form and beak of a vulture, and is the only instance known 
of a nocturnal bird feeding on fruit. It is confined to a limited 
district in the province of Cumana, and shuns the day ; incredi- 
ble numbers have taken possession of a dark cavern in the valley 
of Caripe, where they are killed in thousands every year by the 
Indians for their fat. 

The Troupials represent our Orioles, the Baratras and Becardes 
our shrikes, while the Tangaras partake of the form both of the 
shrike and pie, which last, with all the rest of the crow family, have 
various representatives in this country. Swallows, or birds allied 
to them, are numerous, and many that live on the honeyed juice 
of flowers, like the humming-bird, so peculiarly characteristic of 
South America: 150 species of humming-birds, from the size of a 
wren to that of an humble-bee, adorn the tropical regions of Brazil 
and Guiana. This family, so entirely American, has a range from 
the Straits of Magellan to the 38th parallel of N. lat. : it may be 
met with in the forests on the mountain of Orizaba, at an elevation 
of 11,000 feet above the sea; and some beautiful species of it at 
still greater heights in the Andes of Bohvia and New Grenada. 



BIRDS OF SOUTH AMERICA. 407 

There is only one South American humming-bird which is also 
permanent in the United States, and only two are found in Central 
America : many of them are migratory ; they come in multitudes 
to north Chile in summer, and disappear in winter. The climb- 
ing-birds, with large bills, are mostly confined to the tropical forests, 
which swarm with peculiar races of parrots, paroquets, and macaws. 
It is a remarkable circumstance in the distribution of birds that 
there should be 40 species of parrots in the torrid zone of America, 
and only three species on the opposite coast of Africa, though the 
climate is similar and the vegetation nearly as luxuriant. Par- 
rots range from the Straits of Magellan to the 42d parallel of N. 
lat. ; where the Eider-duck, which is a peculiarly Arctic bird, 
begins. There are whole families of birds in tropical America 
not to be seen elsewhere : as the vividly-coloured Toucan, with its 
huge beak; the Araucari, which lives on the fruit of the Arauca- 
ria ; some peculiar species of the gorgeous trogons or couroucous ; 
the Tomalias, birds related to the cuckoo tribe ; and the Jacmarsj 
which represent the woodpeckers. 

The gallinaceous family is totally different from that of the 
North American forests; the Guan or penelope represents our 
pheasants, the different species of Crax or Alectors the wild tur- 
key, which they equal in size and brilliancy of plumage ; whilst 
the numerous species of Tinamous and cognate genera fill the 
place of the grouse, quails, and partridges of the old continent. 
South America furnishes two species of gallinaceous birds of a 
very peculiar character — the Cariama of Brazil, like to the secre- 
tary-bird of the Cape of Good Hope in its form and its habits of 
destroying reptiles ; and the Kamichi, which possesses one or more 
sharp triangular spurs at the point of each wing, a dreadful instru- 
ment of attack and defence, such as is possessed by no other bird. 

The three-toed or American ostrich, or Struthio Rhea, ranges, 
like all its congeners, over a wide extent of country. It is found 
from the silvas of Brazil to the Rio Negro, which bounds the Pam- 
pas of Buenos Ayres on the south, and in some of the elevated 
plains of the Peru-Bolivian Cordilleras ; while the Struthio Dar- 
winii has the plains of Patagonia to the Straits of Magelien for its 
residence. 

The water-fowl and waders in this land of rivers are beyond 
number ; millions of flamingoes, spatules, cormorants, herons, fish- 
ing falcons, and scissor-beaks, follow the fish that go up the rivers 
to spawn ; nor are gulls wanting where fish are to be found : a 
little snovv^-white heron walks on the back and over the head of 
the crocodile while it sleeps. The water-fowl are almost all pecu- 
liar; the few that are excepted are North American. Eight or 
nine genera belonging to the warm climates of the old world are 
here under new forms, and the number of specific forms of the 



408 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

same genus is greater than in any other country. The beautiful 
red Ibis or Tantalus ruber inhabits Cayenne ; the Ardea hehas and 
scolopax are the most beautiful of the heron tribe, from their varie- 
gated plumage. 

Ducks migrate in immense flocks, alternately between the Ori- 
noco and the Amazons, on account of the greater supply of fish 
afforded by the floods of these rivers, which take place at intervals 
of six months from each other. Between the tropics the vicissi- 
tudes of drought and humidity have much influence on the migra- 
tion of birds, because the supply of their food depends upon these 
changes. 

If anything more were required to show the partial location of 
birds, the Galapagos Archipelago might be mentioned : of 26 spe- 
cimens shot by Mr. Darwin, 25 were peculiar, though bearing a 
strong resemblance to American types ; some birds were even con- 
fined to particular islands ; and the gulls, one of the most widely 
dispersed families, are peculiar. But on this comparatively recent 
volcanic group, only 500 miles distant from the coast of America, 
everything is pecuHar — birds, plants, reptiles, and fish ; and though 
under the equator, none have brilliant colours. 

The coasts of Peru and northern Chile are not rich in birds, but 
in southern Chile there are many humming-birds, parrots, flamin- 
goes, peculiar ducks and geese ; and there commences that incon- 
ceivable quantity of sea-fowl that swarm on the seas and coasts of 
the Antarctic regions. The black scissor-bill, or Rhynchops nigra, 
has been seen to form a dense mass seven miles long ; shags fly 
in an unbroken line two miles. Pelicans, terns, petrels, and many 
others, cover the low islands and coasts of the mainland, and those 
of Tierra del Fuego. 

In the Antarctic and Southern seas Petrels take the place of our 
gulls ; seven species of them inhabit these high southern latitudes 
in prodigious numbers. Two remarkable species of this genus 
are found throughout the Southern Ocean — the Giant Petrel (P. 
gigantea), equal to the albatross in size, and resembling it in its 
mode of life — it sometimes becomes perfectly white ; and the 
Equinoctial Petrel (P. equinoctiahs), a beautiful bird as large as 
our domestic fowl, and of a jet black colour. A flock of what was 
supposed to be the young of the species known as the Pintado or 
Cape pigeon (Procellaria capensis) was estimated to have been 
from six to ten miles long, and two or three miles broad, absolutely 
darkening the air during the two or three hours they were flying 
over the Discovery ships. The snowy petrel, a most elegant bird, 
never leaves the ice, and consequently is never seen north of the 
Antarctic circle in summer. Three species of the southern Pen- 
"guin (Aptenodytes) inhabit these seas ; the A. Patachonica, th& 
largest of sea-fowls, is a rare and, for the most part, solitary bird, 



AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 409 

lives on the pack ice, and weighs from 60 to 70 pounds. The 
other two species are smaller and gregarious ; they crowd the 
snow-clad islands in the high southern latitudes in myriads ; every 
ledge of rock swarms with them, and on the shore of Possession 
Island, close to Victoria Land, it was difficult to pass through the 
multitudes. They are fine, bold birds, pecking and snapping with 
their sharp bills at those who venture among them. They can 
scarcely walk, and, their wings being merely rudimentary, they 
cannot fly ; they skim along the snow, and swim rapidly, even 
under water, resembling more a fish or a seal than a bird in their 
movements, and the noise they make baffles all description. Two 
species of albatross breed in the Antarctic islands ; a kind of skua 
gull, which robs their nests ; and a goose which, like the eider- 
duck, makes its nest with the down from its breast. A very curi- 
ous bird, forming as it were a passage between the gallinaceous 
birds and waders, the Chionis or Vaginahs Alba, is only found near 
the southern extremity of this continent: it is of a milky white, 
and of the size of our domestic pigeon, and often takes refuge on 
the yards of ships off' Cape Horn and Staten Land ; it lives chiefly 
on a small species of cuttle-fish. Few land birds are met with 
within the Antarctic circle : there are but seven or eight species 
in the Auckland Islands, mostly New Zealand birds ; among others, 
the tooa or tui, and an olive-coloured creeper, the choristers of the 
woods. One only was found in Campbell Island. 

Many generic forms are the same at the two extremities of the 
globe, yet with distinct specific differences. Sea-fowls are more 
excursive than other birds, but even they confine themselves within 
definite limits, so that the coasts may be known from their winged 
inhabitants. 

AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 

The Australian birds are, in many respects, as singular as the 
quadrupeds and plants of that country: a white falcon is among 
its birds of prey, a black swan among its water-fowl, and of 45 
genera, 35 are purely Australian. The passeres are so original, 
that many new genera have been found. The Cassican, a hand- 
some bird of bright colours, approaching somewhat to the crow 
family, the Choucalcyon, the golden and black oriole, and one spe- 
cies of Philedon, are peculiarly Australian. The Menura superba, 
or lyre-bird, from the resemblance its outspread tail bears to the 
form of the ancient lyre, is the only bird of its genus, and the only 
one which approaches the character of the gallinaceous family, 
of which none have been discovered in the Australian continent. 
Here are many specific kinds of cuckoos, as the Coucal and the 
Scythrops, the only bird of that genera. Woodpeckers there are 
35 



410 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

none. The parrots, paroquets, and cockatoos, which live in numer- 
ous societies, are all peculiar, especially the black cockatoo, which 
is found here only ; it is not so gregarious, but even more suspi- 
cious than the white cockatoos, which have a sentinel to warn 
them of danger. Chious, with huge bills like the toucan satin- 
birds, pigeons and doves of peculiar forms, abound ; and the Cere- 
opsis goose is no less peculiar among the web-footed tribe. The 
desert plains of this great continent are allotted to the Emu, a large 
struthious bird, like its congener the cassowary incapable of flight, 
and once very plentiful, but now in progress of being extirpated 
or driven by the colonists to the unexplored regions of the inferior. 

The Apteryx, a bird of the same family, still lingers in New 
Zealand, but it is on the verge of extinction, and probably owes its 
existence to its nocturnal and burrowing habits. It is one of those 
anomalous creatures that partakes of the character of several others ; 
its head is in shape something like that of the ibis, with a long 
slender bill, fitted for digging into the ground for worms and 
grubs ; its legs and feet resemble those of the common fowl, with 
a fourth toe or spur behind, in which it differs from its congeners; 
and its wings, if wings they can be called, are exceedingly small. 
In a specimen, whose body measured 19 inches, the wings, stripped 
of the feathers, were only an inch and a half long, ending in a hard 
horny claw three inches long. The comparatively small wings 
are characteristic of the whole family: the rhea and ostrich have 
the largest, which, though unavailing in flight, materially aid their 
progress in running ; the wings of the emu and apteryx serve only 
as weapons of defence : the whole tribe also defend themselves by 
kicking. No animals have a more remarkable geographical dis- 
tribution than this family, or show more distinctly the decided 
limits within which animals have originally been placed. These 
huge birds can neither fly nor swim, consisquently they could not 
have passed through the air or the ocean to distant continents and 
islands. There are five distinct genera, to each of which very 
extensive and widely separated countries have been allotted: the 
Ostrich is spread over Africa, from the Cape of Good Hope to the 
deserts of Arabia ; two species of the Rhea range over the plains 
of the Pampas and Patagonia, in South America; the continent 
of Australia is the abode of the Emu; the Cassowary roves over 
some of the large islands of the Indian Archipelago ; and the 
Apteryx dwells in New Zealand. The Dodo, a very large bird 
of the struthious kind, extirpated by the Dutch navigators, once 
inhabited Mauritius and the adjacent island of Don Rodriguez. 

The remains of a very numerous group of extinct struthious 
birds have been recently discovered imbedded in the very recent 
geological deposits of New Zealand. One of its genera, the 
Dinornis, has several species, the largest of which, the D. gigan- 



AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 411 

teus, attains a height of 11 feet, or double that of the largest 
ostrich ; another, the Palapteryx, upwards of 9 feet. From the 
position in which these bones are found, as well as from their 
state of preservation, they can scarcely be considered as fossil, 
although belonging to species which have become extinct. Pro- 
fessor Owen has described no less than six species of dinornis, 
and four of palapteryx; and later discoveries in the colony will 
probably add several to these numbers. No better example can 
be cited as elucidating the certitude of the deductions of the com- 
parative anatomist than what led to the first discovery of this 
extraordinary group of birds. A small portion of a bone, which 
from its dimensions appeared to have belonged rather to a quad- 
ruped of the size of an ox than to a bird, was submitted to Mr. 
Owen ; he boldly pronounced it, from its structure, to belong to a 
bird of the ostrich kind — a decision that was soon abundantly con- 
firmed by the subsequent discovery not only of the bones of the 
bird, but of its eo-o-s. 

The bones of another extinct bird, the Nestor, have been found, 
mixed with those of the Dinornis. It had been something be- 
tween an owl and a parrot, but more nearly aUied to the latter. 
There are two species living of the nestor, one in New Zealand, 
another in Philip Island, only five miles in extent, and it is found 
in no other part of the world. The Notornis, an extinct race, 
closely allied to the water-hen, of the size of a bustard, had also 
been an ancient inhabitant of these islands, where birds did and do 
exist, almost to the entire exclusion of quadrupeds and reptiles : 
an extinct species of dog, and a rat still existing, are the only 
land animals which shared in these extensive territories with 
multitudes of the feathered racer's 

The ostrich family live on vegetables ; the form of those that 
had their home in New Zealand would lead to the conclusion that 

'^ In some pacts of the earth the same conditions which regulated 
the distribution of the ancient fauna and flora still prevail. The flora 
of the carbonaceous epoch is perfectly similar to that of New Zealand, 
where ferns and club-mosses are so abundant; and the fauna of that 
ancient period had been representative of that which recently prevailed 
in these islands, since foot-prints of colossal birds have been discovered 
in the red sandstone of Connecticut. 

The age of reptiles of the Wealden and other secondary periods is 
representative of the fauna of the Galapagos islands, which chiefly 
consists of tortoises and creatures of the lizard or crocodile family; and 
the cycadaceous plants and marsupial animals of the oolite are repre- 
sentative of the flora and fauna of Australia. 

The colossal birds which prevailed in New Zealand, almost to the 
entire exclusion of reptiles and quadrupeds, lasted to a very late period; 
they differed in the structure of the beak and skull from every class of 
birds, recent or fossil. 



412 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

they had fed on the edible roots of the fern which covers that 
country; and as no quadruped excepting a rat is indigenous in 
New Zealand, though 700 miles long, and in many places 90 
wide, these birds could have had no enemy but man, the most 
formidable of all. 

The beautiful and sprightly Tui, or parson-bird, native in New 
Zealand, is jet black with a white tuft on its breast, and so imita- 
tive that it can be taught to repeat whole sentences. There are 
parrots and paroquets, vast numbers of pigeons, fine warblers, 
many small birds, and a great variety of water-fowl, amongst 
others a cormorant, which, though web-footed, perches on the 
trees that overhang the streams and sea, watching for fish; and a 
snow-white frigate-bird, that pounces on them from a great height 
in the air. Altogether, there are at least 84 species of birds that 
inhabit these islands. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

Distribution of Mammalia throughout the Earth. 

Carbonic acid, water, and ammonia, contain the elements neces- 
sary for the support of animals, as well as of vegetables. They 
are supplied to the graminivora in the vegetable food, which is 
converted into animal substance by their vital functions. 

Vitality in animals, as in vegetables, is the power they have of 
assimilating their food, a process independent of volition, since it 
is carried on during sleep, and is the cause of force. AnimaJs 
inhale oxygen with the air they breathe; part of the oxygen 
combines with the carbon contained in the food, and is exhaled in 
the form of carbonic acid gas. With every effort, with every 
breath, and with every motion, voluntary or involuntary, at every 
instant of life, a part of the muscular substance becomes dead, 
separates from the living part, combines with the remaining 
portion of inhaled oxygen, and is removed. Food, therefore, is 
necessary to compensate for the waste, to supply nourishment, 
and to restore strength to the nerves, on which all vital motion 
depends ; for by the nerves volition acts on Hving matter. Food 
would not be sufficient to make up for this waste, and consequent 
loss of strength, without sleep ; during which voluntary motion 
ceases, and the undisturbed assimilation of the food suffices to 
restore strength, and to make up for the involuntary motion of 
breathing, which is also a source of waste. 

The perpetual combination of the oxygen of the atmosphere 



CHEMISTRY OF ANIMAL LIFE. 413 

Avith the carbon of the food, and with the effete substance of the 
body, is a real combustion, and is supposed to be the cause of 
animal heat, because heat is constantly given out by the combina- 
tion of carbon and oxygen ; and, without a constant supply of 
food, the oxygen would soon consume the whole animal, except 
the bones. 

Graminivorous animals inhale oxygen in breathing, and, as 
vegetable food does not contain so much carbon as animal food, 
they require a greater supply to compensate for the wasting influ- 
ence of the oxygen ; therefore, cattle are constantly eating. But 
the nutritious parts of vegetables are identical in composition with 
the chief constituents of the blood ; and from blood every part of 
the animal body, and even a portion of the bones, is formed. 

Carnivorous animals have not pores in the skin, therefore their 
supply of oxygen is from their breath only ; and, as animal food 
contains a greater quantity of carbon, they do not require to eat 
so often as animals that feed on vegetables. The restlessness of 
carnivorous animal when confined in a cage is owing to the super- 
abundance of carbon in their food. They move about continually 
to quicken respiration, and by that means procure a supply of 
oxygen to carry off the redundant carbon. 

The quantity of animal heat is in proportion to the amount of 
the oxygen inspired in equal times. The heat of birds is greater 
than that of quadrupeds, and in both it is higher than the tem- 
perature of amphibious animals and fishes, which have the coldest 
blood. On these subjects we are indebted to Professor Liebig, 
who has thrown so much light on the important sciences of animal 
and vegetable chemistry. 

The mammalia consist of nine orders of animals, which differ 
in appearance and in their nature ; but they agree in the one 
attribute of suckling their young. These orders are — the Gluad- 
rumana, animals which can use their fore feet as hands, as 
monkeys and Apes ; Cheiroptera, animals with winged arms, as 
bats ; Carnivora, that live on animal food, as the lion, tiger, 
bear, &c. ; Rodentia, or gnaw^ers, as beavers, squirrels, mice ; 
Edentata or toothless animals [or more properly wanting certain 
teeth, as the canines or incisors], as anteaters and armadilloes ; 
Pachydermata, or thick-skinned animals, as the elephant, the 
horse; Ruminantia, animals that chew the cud, as camels, lamas, 
giraffes, cows, sheep, deer ; Marsupialia, possessing a pouch in 
which the young is received after birth ; and Cetacea3, as whales 
and dolphins. 

The animal creation, like the vegetable, varies correspondingly 

with height and latitude ; the changes of species in ascending the 

Himalaya, for instance, are similar to what a traveller would meet 

with in his journey from a southern to a high northern latitude. 

36* 



414 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

The number of land animals increases from the frigid zones to the 
equator, but the law is reversed with regard to the marine mam- 
maha, which abound most in high latitudes. Taking a broad 
view of the distribution of the nine orders of mammalia, it may 
be observed that the tropical forests are the chief abode of the 
monkey tribe : Asia is the home of the ape, especially the islands 
of the Indian Archipelago, as far as the most easterly meridian of 
Timor, beyond which there are none. 

They abound throughout Africa from the Gape of Good Hope 
to Gibraltar, where the Barbary ape or magot is found : another 
species of magot inhabits the island of Niphon, the northern hmit 
of monkeys at the eastern extremity of the continent. 

The bats that live on fruits are chiefly met with in tropical and 
warm chmates, especially in the Indian Archipelago ; the common 
bats, which Hve on insects, and are so numerous in species as to 
form more than a third of the whole family, are found everywhere 
except in arctic America. The Vampire is only met with in 
tropical America. Carnivorous mammalia are distributed all over 
the globe, though very unequally : in Australia there ,are only 
four species, two of which are bats ; there are only 13 in South 
America, and 27 in the Oceanic region ; while in the tropical 
regions of America there are 109, in Africa 130, and in Asia 166 
species of carnivora ; and so rapid is their increase towards the 
tropical regions, that there are nearly three times as many in the 
tropical as in the temperate zones. 

With regard to the Gnawers or Rodents, species of the same 
group frequently have a wide range in the same, or nearly the 
same, parallels of latitude, but when they are inhabitants of high 
mountain-ridges they follow the direction of the chain, whatever 
that may be, and groups confined to high latitudes often appear 
again at great elevations in low latitudes. The Edentata are parti- 
cularly characteristic of South America, where there are three 
times as many species as there are in Asia, Africa, and Australia, 
taken together. In the three latter countries they only occur at 
intervals, but in America they extend from the tropic of Cancer 
to the plains of Patagonia. Thick-skinned and ruminating ani- 
mals are very abundant in the old continent, especially in Asia 
and Africa ; they are also in North America, but in the southern 
part of that continent there is only the Tapir, and in Australia 
there are none. The marsupiaha are confined to Australia and 
America. 

The distribution of animals is guided by laws analogous to those 
which regulate the distribution of plants, insects, fishes, and birds. 
Each continent, and even different parts of the same continent, 
are centres of zoological families, which have always existed 
there, and nowhere else ; each group being almost always speci- 
fically different from all others. 



DISTRIBUTION OF MAMMALIA. 415 

Food, security, and temperature have no influence, as primary 
causes, in the distribution of animals. The plains of America 
are not less fit for rearing oxen than the meadows of Europe ; yet 
the common ox was not found in that continent at the time of its 
discovery ; and with regard to temperature, this animal thrives 
on the llanos of Venezuela and the pampas of Brazil as well as on 
the steppes in Europe. The horse is another example : originally 
a native of the deserts of Tartary, he now roams wild in herds of 
hundreds of thousands on the grassy plains of America, though 
unknown in that continent at the time of the Spanish invasion. 
All animals, however, are not so flexible in their constitutions, for 
most of them would perish from change of cHmate. The stations 
which the different famihes now occupy must have been allotted 
to them as each part of the land rose above the ocean ; and be- 
cause they have found in these stations all that was necessary for 
their existence, many have never wandered from them, notwith- 
standing their powers of locomotion ; while others have migrated, 
but only within certain bounds. 

Instinct leads animals to migrate when they become too numer- 
ous ; the rat in Kamtchatka, according to Pennant, sets out in 
spring in great multitudes, and travels 800 miles, swimming over 
rivers and lakes ; and the Lapland marmot or lemming, native in 
the mountains of Kolen, migrates in bands, once or twice in 25 
years, to the Western Ocean, which they enter and are drowned ; 
other bands go through Swedish Lapland and perish in the Gulf 
of Bothnia. Thus, nature provides a remedy against the over 
increase of any one species, and maintains the balance of the 
whole. A temporary migration for food is not uncommon in 
animals. The wild ass, a native of the deserts of Great Tartary, 
in summer feeds to the east and north of the lake of Aral, and in 
autumn they migrate in thousands to the north of India, and even 
to Persia.79 The ruminating animals that dwell in the inaccessi- 
ble parts of the Himalaya descend to their lower declivities in 
search of food in winter ; and for the same reason the reindeer 
and musk-ox leave the Arctic snows. 

The Arctic regions form a district common to Europe, Asia, 
and America. On thisaccount,the animals inhabiting the northern 
parts of these continents are sometimes identical, often very simi- 
lar ; in fact, there is no genus of quadrupeds in the Arctic regions 
that is not found in the three continents, though there are only 
27 species common to all, and these are mostly fur-bearing animals. 

■"> Perhaps no quadruped in the wild state will be found to have so 
wide a vertical range of habitat as this animal. It is found in the plains 
of Tartary, in the valley of the Tigris, at a very few feet above the sea- 
level, and in the most elevated plains of the Himalaya, at elevations 
exceeding 15,300 feet. 



416 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

In the temperate zone of Europe and Asia, which forms an unin- 
terrupted region, identity of species is occasionally met with, but, 
for the most part, marked by such varieties in size and colour as 
might be expected to arise from difference of food and climate. 
The same genera are sometimes found in the intertropical parts 
of Asia, Africa, and America, but the same species never ; much 
less in the south temperate zones of these continents, where all 
the animals are different, whether birds, beasts, insects, or rep- 
tiles ; but in similar climates analogous tribes replace one another. 
Europe has no family and no order peculiarly its oum, and 
many of its species are common to other countries ; consequently 
the great zoological districts, where the subject is viewed on a 
broad scale, are Asia, Africa, Oceanica, America, and Australia ; 
but in each of these there are smaller districts, to which parti- 
cular genera and families are confined. Yet w^hen the regions 
are not separated by lofty mountain-chains, acting as barriers, 
the races are in most cases blended together on the confines 
between the two districts, so that there is not a sudden change. 



EUROPEAN aUADRUPEDS. 

The character of the animals of temperate Europe has been 
more changed by the progress of civilization than that of any 
other quarter of the globe. Many of its original inhabitants have 
been extirpated, and new races introduced ; but it seems always 
to have had various animals capable of being domesticated. The 
wild cattle in the parks of the Duke of Hamilton and the Earl of 
Tankerville are the only remnants of the ancient inhabitants of 
the British forests, though they were spread over Europe, and 
perhaps were the parent stock from which the European cattle of 
the present time have descended ; though the Aurochs, a race 
nearly extinct, and found only in the forests of Lithuania and the 
Caucasus, may have some claim to the pedigree. Both races 
are supposed to have come from Asia. The Mouflon, which 
exists in Corsica and Sardinia, is said to be the parent stock of 
our domestic sheep. The pig, the goat, the fallow-deer, and red- 
deer, have been reclaimed, and also the reindeer, which cannot 
strictly be called European, since it also inhabits the northern 
regions of Asia and America. The cat is European ; and, alto- 
gether, eight or ten species of tamed quadrupeds have sprung 
from native animals. 

There are still about 180 wild land-animals in Europe : 45 of 
these are also found in western Asia, and nine in northern Africa. 
The most remarkable are the reindeer, elk, red and fallow deer, 
the roe-buck, glutton, lynx, polecat, several wild-cats, the common 
and black squirrels, the fox, wild boar, wolf, the black and the 



ASIATIC QUADRUPEDS. 417 

brown bear, eight species of weasels, and seven of mice. The 
otter is common ; but the beaver is now found only on the Rhine, 
the Rhone, the Danube, and some other large rivers ; rabbits and 
hares are numerous ; the hedgehog is everywhere ; the porcu- 
pine in southern Europe only ; the chamois and ibex in the Alps 
and Pyrenees. Many species of these animals are widely dis- 
tributed over Europe, generally with variations in size and colour. 
The chamois of the Alps and Pyrenees, though the same in 
species, is slightly varied in appearance ; and the fox of the most 
northern parts of Europe is larger than that in Italy, with a richer 
fur, and somewhat different colour. 

Some animals never descend below a certain height, as the 
ibex and chamois, which live on higher ground than any of their 
order, being usually found between the region of trees and the 
line of perpetual snow, which is about 8900 feet on the southern, 
and 8200 on the northern declivities of the Alps. The common 
stag does not go above 7000 feet, and the fallow-deer not more 
than 6000, above the level of the sea : these two, however, 
descend to the plains, the former never do. The bear, lynx, and 
the stoat ascend nearly to the limit of perpetual snow. 

Some European animals are much circumscribed in their 
locality. The ichneumon is peculiar to Egypt ; the mouflon is 
confined to Corsica and Sardinia; there are a weasel and bat 
which inhabit Sardinia only; and Sicily has several peculiar 
species of bats and mice. There is only one species of monkey 
in Europe, which lives on the rock of Gibraliar, and is supposed 
to have been brought from Africa. All the indigenous British 
quadrupeds now existing, together with the hyaena, tiger, bear, 
and wolf, whose bones have been found in caverns, are also 
found in the same state in Germany. Ireland was separated by 
the Irish Channel before all the animals had migrated across 
England ; so that our squirrel, mole, polecat, dormouse, and many 
smaller quadrupeds, never reached the sister island. Mr. Owen 
has shown that the British horse, ass, hog, the smaller wild ox, 
the goat, roe, beaver, and many small rodents, are the same 
species with those which had co-existed with the mammoth, the 
great northern hippopotamus, and two kinds of rhinoceros long 
extinct. So that a part only of the modern tertiary fauna has 
perished, from whence he infers that the cause of their destruc- 
tion was not a violent universal catastrophe from which none could 
escape. The Bos longifrons was co-existent with man. 



ASIATIC aUADRUPEDS. 

Asia has a greater number and a greater variety of wild ani- 



418 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY, 

mals than any country, except America, and also a larger propor- 
tion of those that are domesticated. Though civilized from the 
earliest ages, the destruction of the animal creation has not been 
so great as in Europe, owing to the inaccessible height of the 
mountains, the extent of the plains and desert, and, not least, to 
the impenetrable forests and jungles, which afford them a safe 
retreat : 288 mammalia are Asiatic, of which 186 are common to 
it and other countries ; these, however, chiefly belong to the tem- 
perate zone. 

Asia Minor is a district of transition from the fauna of Europe 
to that of Asia. There the chamois, the bouquetin, the brown 
bear, the wolf, fox, hare, and others, are mingled with the hyaena, 
the Angora goat, which bears a valuable fleece, the Argali or wild 
sheep, the white squirrel ; and even the Bengal royal tiger is 
sometimes seen on Mount Ararat, and is not uncommon in Azer- 
bijan and the mountains in Persia. 

Arabia is inhabited by the hyaena, panther, jackal, wolf, and 
musk-deer. Antelopes and monkeys are found in Yemen and 
Aden. Most of these are also indigenous in Persia. The wild 
ass, Onagra, a handsome spirited animal of great speed, and so 
shy that it is scarcely possible to come near it, wanders in herds 
over the plains and table-lands of central Asia. It is also found in 
the Indian desert, and especially in the Run of Cutch — "the 
wilderness and the barren lands are his dwelling" — and in the 
most elevated regions of Tartary and Tibet, on the shores of the 
sacred lakes of Manasarowar and Rakastal, at a height of more 
than 15,250 feet above the sea.^^ 

The table-lands and mountains which divide eastern Asia almost 
into polar and tropical zones, produce as great a distinction in the 
character of its indigenous fauna. The severity of the climate 
in Siberia renders the skins of its numerous fur-bearing animals 
more valuable. These are reindeer, elks, wolves, the large white 
bear, that lives among the ice on the Arctic shores, several other 
bears, the lynx, various kinds of martens and cats, the common, the 
blue, and the black fox, the ermine, and sable. The fur of these 
last is much esteemed, and is only equalled by that of the sea- 
otter, which inhabits the shores on both sides of the northern 
Pacific. 



^ It is by no means certain that the wild Ass of the three countries 
mentioned in the text belongs to the same species. The Kiang of 
Tibet appears to be the same as the Dziggetai (Equus Hemonus) of 
Pallas, which is met with throughout central Asia ; but the species 
found in the Run of Cutch is of a diflerent colour and form: whilst the 
one neighs like a horse, the other brays like an ass; in one the striped 
colour of the zebra family exists in the young, and not in the second. 



ASIATIC QUADRUPEDS. 419 

With the exception of the Jerboa, which burrows in sandy 
deserts, on the table-land and elsewhere, all the Asiatic species 
of gnawers are confined to Siberia. The most remarkable of these 
is the flying squirrel. The Ahai Mountains teem with wild ani- 
mals, besides many of those mentioned. There are large stags, 
bears, some peculiar weasels, the argali, and the wild sheep. The 
wild goat of the Alps is found in the Sayansk part of the chain ; 
the glutton and musk-deer in the Baikal ; and in Da-Ouria the 
red-deer and the Antelope Saiga. The Bengal tiger and the 
Felis Irbis, a species of panther, wander from the Celestial 
Mountains to the Altai chain and southern Siberia : the Tiger is 
met with even on the banks of the Obi, and also in China, though 
in the northern regions it differs considerably from the same 
species in Bengal ; thus it can bear a mean annual temperature 
of from 81° of Fahrenheit to the freezing point. The Tapir, and 
many of the animals of the Indian Archipelago, are found in the 
southern provinces of the Chinese empire ; but its fauna is little 
known. It is, however, probable that in the northern parts it 
resembles that of the Altai mountains and Siberia. The animals 
of Japan have a strong analogy to those of Europe : many are 
identical, or shghtly varied, as the badger, otter, mole, common 
fox, marten, and squirrel. On the other hand, a large species of 
bear in the island of Jezo resembles the grizzly bear in the Rocky 
Mountains of North America. A chamois in other parts of Japan 
is similar to the Antelope montana of the same mountains : and 
other animals native in Japan are the same with those in Sumatra ; 
so that its fauna is connected with that of very distant regions. 

A few animals are peculiar to the high cold plains of the table- 
land of eastern Asia : the dziggetai, a very fleet animal, resem- 
bling both the horse and the ass, is peculiar to these Tartarian 
steppes ; it is probably the same species as the Kiang of Tibet, 
which inhabits at very great heights, and has been seen on the 
banks of the sacred lake of Manasarowar, at an elevation of 15,250 
feet, by Lieutenant Strachey : two species of antelopes inhabit the 
plains of Tibet, congregating in immense herds, with sentinels so 
vigilant that it is scarcely possible to approach them. 

The Dzeran, or yellow goat, which is both swift and shy, and 
the handsome Tartar ox, are native in these wilds ; also the shawl- 
wool goat and the manul, from which the Angora cat, so much 
admired in Persia and Europe, is descended. Most of the animals 
that live at such heights cannot exist in less elevated and Avarmer 
regions, exhibiting a striking instance of the limited distribution 
of species. Goats and sheep best endure the thin air and great 
cold of high lands : the Cashmere goat and Argoli sheep browse 
on the plains of Tibet at elevations of from 10,000 to 13,000 feet; 
the rass,a sheep with straight spiral horns, Hves on the table-lands 



420 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

of Pamer, which are 15,000 feet above the sea; and also the 
kutch-gar, a species of sheep which is about the height of a year- 
old colt, with fine-curling horns : they congregate in flocks of 
many hundreds, gnd are hunted by the Kirghis. 

The ruminating animals of Asia are more numerous and excel- 
lent than those of any other part of the world ; 64 species are 
native, and 46 of these exist there only. There are several spe- 
cies of wild oxen ; one in the Birmese empire, and on the moun- 
tains of north-eastern India, with spiral twisted horns. The 
buffalo is native in China, India, Borneo, and the Sunda Islands ; 
it is a large animal, formidable in a wild state, but domesticated 
universally in the East. It was introduced into Italy in the sixth 
century, and large herds now graze in the low marshy plains 
near the sea. 

Various kinds of oxen have been domesticated in India time 
immemorial : the handsome Indian ox, with a hump on the 
shoulder, has been venerated by the Brahmins for ages ; the 
beautiful white silky tail of the domesticated ox of Tartary, used 
in the East to drive away flies, was adopted as the Turkish 
standard ; and the common Indian ox differs from all others in 
the great speed of its course. Some other species of cattle have 
been tamed, and some are still wild in India, Java, and other 
Asiatic islands. The Cashmere goat, which bears the shawl- 
wool, is the most valuable of the endless varieties of goats and 
sheep of Asia ; it is kept in large herds in the great valleys on 
the northern and southern declivities of the Himalaya, and in the 
upper regions of Bhotan, where the cold climate is congenial to it. 

The Bactrian camel, with two humps, is strong, rough, and 
hairy, and is said to occur in a wild state in the desert of Shamo: 
it is the camel of central Asia, north of the Himalaya and Taurus, 
also of the Crimera and the countries round the Caucasus. The 
common or Arabian camel with one hump is a native of Asia, 
though only known now in a domesticated state ; it has been 
introduced into Africa, Italy, the Canary islands, and even into 
the elevated regions of the Peru-Bolivian Andes. The best come 
from the province of Nejed in Arabia, which, on that account, is 
called the "mother of camels." The camel of Oman is remark- 
able for beauty and swiftness. 

Ten species of antelopes and twenty of deer are peculiar to 
Asia : two species of antelopes have already been mentioned as 
peculiar to the table-lands, the others are distributed in the Asiatic 
archipelago. The genuine musk-deer (Moschus moschiferus) 
inhabits the mountainous countries of central and south-eastern 
Asia, between China and Tartary, the regions round Lake Baikal, 
the Altai mountains, Nepaul, Bhotan, Tibet, and the adjacent 
countries of China and Tonquin. 



ASIATIC QUADRUPEDS. 421 

Asia possesses about ten native species of Pacliydermata, in- 
cluding the elephant, horse, ass, which have been domesticated 
from the time of the earliest scriptural records. The horse is 
supposed to have existed wild in the plains of central Asia, as the 
dromedary in Arabia ; though now they are only known as do- 
mestic animals. The Arabian and Persian horses have acknow- 
ledged excellence and beauty, and from these our best European 
horses are descended ; the African horse, which was introduced 
into Spain by the Moors, is probably of the same race. 

The elephant has long been a domestic animal in Asia, though 
it still roams wild in formidable herds through the forests and 
jungles at the foot of the Himalaya, in other parts of India, the 
Indo-Chinese peninsula, and the islands of Sumatra and Ceylon; 
the hunting elephant is esteemed the most noble. A one-horned 
rhinoceros is a native of continental Asia. 

There are 60 genera of Asiatic carnivorous animals, of which 
the royal tiger is the handsomest and the most formidable : its 
favourite habitation is in the jungles of Hindostan, though it 
wanders nearly to the limit of perpetual snow in the Himalaya, 
to the Persian and Armenian mountains, to Siberia and China. 
Leopards and panthers are common, and there is a maneless lion 
in Guzerat : the Chitta, used in hunting, is the only one of the 
panthers capable of being tamed. The hy^na is found every- 
where, excepting the Birman empire, in which there are neither 
wolves, hyaenas, foxes, nor jackals. There are four species of 
bears in India ; that of Nepaul has valuable fur: the wild boar, 
hog, and dogs of endless variety, abound. 

The Edentata have only two representatives in India, both 
manis or pangolins ; which differ from all others except the Afri- 
can, in being covered with imbricated scales. Of these the short- 
tailed pangolin, or scaly anteater, is found throughout the Deccan, 
Bengal, Nepaul, the southern provinces of China, and Formosa. 

The Indian Archipelago and the Indo-Chinese peninsula form 
a zoological province of a very peculiar nature, being allied to the 
faunas of India, Australia, and South America, yet having animals 
exclusively its own. The royal tiger is in great abundance in 
the Malay peninsula, and also the black variety of the panther, 
leopard, wild cats, multitudes of elephants, the rhinoceros of all 
three species, the Malayan tapir, many deer, the Babiroussa hog, 
and another species of that genus. Some groups of the islands 
have several animals in common, either identical or with slight 
variations, that are altogether wanting in other islands, which, 
in their turn, have creatures of their own. Many species are 
common to the archipelago and the neighbouring parts of the 
continent, or even to China, Bengal, Hindostan, and Ceylon. 
Flying quadrupeds are a distinguishing feature of this archi- 
36 



422 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

pelago, though some do not absolutely fly, but, by an extension 
of the skin of their sides to their legs, which serves as a parchute, 
they take long leaps. Nocturnal flying squirrels, of several spe- 
cies, are common to the Malayan peninsula and the Sunda Islands, 
especially Java ; and three species of flying Lemurs inhabit 
Sunda, Malacca, and the Pelew Islands. Besides these, there 
are the frugivorous bats, which really fly, difl^ering from bats in 
other countries by living exclusivelj/ upon vegetable food. The 
edible roQssette, or kalong, one of the largest known, appears in 
flocks of hundreds, and even thousands, in Java, Sumatra, and 
Banda : the Pteropus funereus, another of these large bats, assem- 
bles in as great numbers. 

A hundred and eighty species of the ape and monkey tribe are 
entirely Asiatic : monkeys are found only on the coast of India, 
Cochin-China, and the Sunda Islands; the Jong-armed apes or 
gibbons are in the Sunda Islands and the Malayan peninsula. 
The Simayang, a very large ape of Sumatra and Bencoolen, goes 
in large troops, following a leader, and makes a howling noise at 
sunrise and sunset that is heard miles off. Sumatra and Borneo 
are the peculiar abode of the Orang-outang, which, in the Malay 
language, means the "man of woods," which, except perhaps the 
Chimpanzee of Africa, approaches nearest to man. It has never 
spread over the islands it inhabits, though there seems to be 
nothing to prevent it, but it finds all that is necessary within a 
limited district. The orang-outang and the long-armed apes have 
extraordinary muscular strength, and swing from tree to tree by 
their arms. 

The Malays have given the name of orang, or man, to the 
whole tribe, on account of their intelligence as well as their form. 

A two-horned rhinoceros is peculiar to Java, of a different spe- 
cies from the African, also the Felis macrocelis, and a very large 
bear ; there are only tw^o species of squirrels in Java, which is 
remarkable, as the Sunda Islands are rich in them. The royal 
tiger of India and the elephant are found only in Sumatra, and 
the babiroussa lives in Borneo ; but these two islands have many 
quadrupeds in common, as a leopard, the one-horned rhinoceros, 
the black antelope, some graceful miniature creatures of the deer 
kind, the Tapir, also found in Malacca, besides a wild boar, an 
inhabitant of all the marshy forest from Borneo to New Guinea. 
In the larger islands deer abound, some as large as the elk, proba- 
bly the Hippelaphus of Aristotle. 

The Anoa, a ruminating animal about the size of a sheep, a 
species of antelope, shy and savage, goes in herds in the moun- 
tains of Celebes, where many forms of animals strangers to the 
Sunda Islands begin to appear, as some sorts of phaiangers, or 
pouched quadrupeds. These new forms become more numerous 



AFRICAN QUADRUPEDS. 423 

in the Moluccas, which are inhabited by flying phalangers and 
other pouched animals, with scaly tails. The phalangers are 
nocturnal, and live on trees. In New Guinea there are kanga- 
roos, the spotted phalanger, the pelandoe, the New Guinea hog, 
and the Papua dog, said to be the origin of all the native dogs in 
Australia and Oceanica, wild or tame. 

The fauna of the Philippine Islands is analogous to that in the 
Sunda Islands. They have several quadrupeds in common with 
India and Ceylon, but there are others which probably are not 
found in these localities. 



AFRICAN aUADRUPEDS. 

The opposite extremes of aridity and moisture in the African 
continent have had great influence in the nature and distribution 
of its animals ; and since by far the greater part consists of plains 
utterly barren or covered by temporary verdure, and watered by 
inconstant streams that flow only a few months in the year, fleet 
animals, fitted to live on arid plains, are far more abundant than 
those that require rich vegetation and much water. The latter 
are chiefly confined to the intertropical coasts, and especially to 
the large jungles and deep forests at the northern declivity of the 
table-land, Avhere several genera and many species exist that are 
not found elsewhere. Africa has a fauna in many respects insu- 
lated from that of every other part of the globe ; for although 
about 100 of its quadrupeds are common to other countries, there 
are 250 species its own. Several of these animals, especially the 
larger kinds, are distributed over the whole table-land from the 
Cape of Good Hope to the highlands of Abyssinia and Senegam- 
bia without the smallest variety, and many are slightly modified 
in colour and size. Ruminating animals are very numerous, 
though few have been domesticated : of these, the ox of Abyssinia 
and Bornou is remarkable from the extraordinary size of its horns, 
which are sometimes 2 feet in circumference at the root; and the 
Galla ox of Abyssinia has horns 4 feet long. There are many 
African varieties of buffalo ; that at the Cape of Good Hope is a 
large, fierce animal, wandering in herds in every part of the 
country, even to Abyssinia: the flesh of the whole race is tainted 
with the odour of musk. The African sheep and goats, of which 
there are many varieties, differ from those of other countries ; the 
wool of all is coarse, except that of the Merino sheep, said to have 
been introduced into Spain by the Moors from Morocco. 

No country has produced a ruminating animal similar, or even 
analogous, to the Giraffe, or Camelopard, which ranges widely 
over south Africa from the northern banks of the Gareep, or 



424 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

Orange river, to the Great Desert ; it is also found in Dongola 
and in Abyssinia. It is a gentle, timid animal, which has been 
seen in troops of 100. The earliest record we have of it is in the 
sculptured monuments of the ancient Egyptians, and it is well 
known that it was brought to Rome to grace the triumph of a 
victorious emperor. 

Africa may truly be said to be the land of the genus Antelope, 
which is found in every part of it, where it represents the deer 
of Europe, Asia, and America. Different species have their 
peculiar localities, while others are widely dispersed, sometimes 
with and sometimes without any sensible variety of size or colour. 
The greater number are inhabitants of the plains, while a few 
penetrate into the forests. Sixty species have been described, of 
which at least 26 are found north of the Cape of Good Hope and 
in the adjacent countries. They are of every size, from the 
pigmy antelope not larger than a hare, to the Caama, which is 
as large as an ox. Timidity is the universal character of the race. 
Most species are gregarious ; and the number in a herd is far too 
great even to guess at. Like all animals that feed in groups, 
they have sentinels ; and they are the easy prey of so many 
carnivorous animals, that their safety requires the precaution. 
At the head of their enemies is the lion, who lurks among the 
tall reeds at the fountain to seize them when ihey come to drink. 
They are graceful in their motions, especially the spring-buck, 
which goes in a compact troop ; and in their march there is con- 
stantly one which gathers its slender limbs together and bounds 
into the air. 

Africa has only two species of deer, both belonging to the 
Atlas : one is the common fallow-deer of Europe. 

The 38 species of rodentia, or gnawing quadrupeds, of this 
continent, live on the plains ; and many of them are leaping 
animals, as the Jerboa capensis. Squirrels are comparatively 
rare. 

There are some species of the horse peculiar to south Africa ; 
of these the gaily-striped Zebra and the more sober-coloured 
Q-uagga wander in troops over the plains, often in company with 
ostriches. An alliance between creatures differing in nature and 
habits is not easily accounted for. The two-horned rhinoceros of 
Africa is different from that of Asia : there are certainly three, 
and probably five, species of these huge animals peculiar to the 
table-land. Dr. Smith saw 150 in one day near the 24th parallel 
of south latitude. The hippopotamus is exclusively African : 
multitudes inhabit the lakes and rivers in the intertropical and 
southern parts of the continent; those that inhabit the Nile and 
Senegal appear to form different species. An elephant, differing 
in species from that of Asia, is so numerous, that 200 have been 



AFRICAN QUADRUPEDS. 425 

seen in a herd near Lake Tchad. They are not domesticated in 
Africa, and are hunted by the natives for their tusks. The Pha- 
cochoere, or Ethiopian hog, and a species of Hyrax, are among- 
the Pachydermata of this country. The monkey tribe is found 
in all the hot parts of Africa : pecuhar genera are allotted to par- 
ticular districts. Except a few in Asia, the family of guenons is 
found in no part of the world but the Cape of Good Hope, the 
coasts of Loango and Guinea, where they swarm. 

The species are numerous, and vary much in size and colours : 
the cynocephalus, or blue-headed baboon, with a face like that of 
a dog, is large, ferocious, and dangerous. One species of these 
baboons inhabits Guinea, others the southern parts of the table- 
land, and one is met with everywhere from Sennaar to Cafraria. 
A remarkable long-eared kind is found in Abyssinia ; the man- 
drills, which belong to the same genus, are confined to central 
Africa. The magot or Barbary ape is in north Africa ; and the 
only macac in this continent inhabits the mountains in the high 
country of southern Abyssinia, 8000 feet above the level of the 
sea. The African species of thumbless apes are met with in the 
tropical countries on the west coast, where the Colobus comosus, 
or king of the monkeys, also lives, so called by the natives from 
its beautiful fur and singular head of hair ; another of these is 
peculiar to the low lands of Gojam, Kulla, and Damot. The 
Chimpanzee, which so nearly approaches the human form, 
inhabits the forests of south Africa from Cape Negro to the 
Gambia. Living in society like all apes and monkeys, which 
are eminently sociable, it is very inteUigent and easily lamed. 
A new speeies of African Chimpanzee, equalling in size the 
Orang-outang, has been recently described by Professor Owen : 
it is probably the largest of the quadrumana, and by all accounts 
the most dangerous and ferocious. 

Baron Humboldt observes that all apes resembling man have 
an expression of sadness ; that their gaiety diminishes as their 
intelligence increases. 

Africa possesses the cat tribe in great variety and beauty ; 
lions, leopards, and panthers are numerous throughout the conti- 
nent ; servals and viverrine cats are in the torrid districts ; and 
the lion of the Atlas is said to be the most formidable of all. In 
no country are foxes so abundant. Various species inhabit Nubia, 
Abyssinia, and the Cape of Good Hope. The corsac is peculiar 
to the Cape. The long-eared fox, the famel of Kordofan, and 
some others, are found in Africa only. There are also various 
species of dogs, the hyaena, and the jackal. The hyaenas hunt 
in packs, attack the lion and panther, and easily destroy them. 

Two species of Edentata are African — the long-tailed manis, 
and the Aard-vark, or earth-hog : the first is covered with scales, 
36* 



426 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

the latter with coarse long hair ; they burrow in the ground and 
feed on ants. Great flocks of a large migratory vampire-bat fre- 
quent the Slave-coast. Altogether there are 26 species of African 
bats. 

Multitudes of antelopes of various species, lions, leopards, pan- 
thers, hyaenas, jackals, and some other carnivora, live in the oases 
of the great northern deserts ; jerboas, and endless species of 
leaping gnawers, rats, and mice burrow in the ground. The 
dryness of the climate and soil keeps the coats of the animals 
clean and glossy ; and it has been observed that tawny and grey 
tints are the prevailing colours in the fauna of the north African 
deserts, not only in the birds and beasts, but in reptiles and 
insects. In consequence of the continuous desert extending from 
North Africa through Arabia to Persia and India, many analogous 
species of animals exist in those countries : in some instances 
they are the same, or varieties of the same, species, as the ass, 
the dziggeti, antelopes, leopards, panthers, jackals, and hyasnas. 

The fauna on the eastern side of the great island of Madagascar 
is analogous to that of India; on the western side it resembles 
that of Africa, though, as far as it is known, it seems to be a dis- 
tinct centre of animal life. It has no ruminating animals; and 
the monkey tribe is represented by the Lemures and the Galagos, 
which are characteristic of this fauna. A frugivorous bat, the 
size of a common fowl, forms an article of food. 



AMERICAN aUADRUPEDS. 

No species of animal has yet been extirpated in America, 
which is the richest zoological province, possessing 537 species 
of mammaha, of which 480 are its own ; yet no country has con- 
tributed so Httle to the stock of domestic animals. With the ex- 
ception of the Llama and Alpaca, and the turkey, and perhaps 
some sheep and dogs, America has furnished no animal or bird 
serviceable to man, while it has received from Europe all its 
domestic animals and its civihzed inhabitants. 

Arctic America possesses most of the valuable fur-bearing 
animals that are in Siberia; and they were very plentiful till the 
unsparing destruction of them has driven those yet remaining to 
the high latitudes, where the hunters that follow them are ex- 
posed to great hardships. Nearly 6,000,000 of skins were 
brought to England in one year, most of which were taken in 
the forest regions ; the barren grounds are inhabited by the 
Arctic fox, the polar hare, by the brown and the white bear, a 
formidable animal which often lives on the ice itself. The rein- 
deer lives on the lichens and mosses of these barren grounds, and 



AMERICAN QUADRUPEDS. 427 

wanders to the shores of the Polar Ocean : its southern limit in 
Europe is the Baltic Sea, in America it is the latitude of Q,uebec. 
Some of the fur-bearing quadrupeds of these deserts never pass 
the 65th degree of N. lat. ; the greater number live in the north- 
ern forests, as the black bear, racoon, badger, the ermine, and 
four or five other members of the weasel tribe, the red fox, the 
polar and brown lynxes, the beaver, the musquash or musk-rat, 
of which half a million are killed annually, and the moose-deer, 
whose northern range ends where the aspen and willows cease to 
grow. The grizzly bear, the largest and most ferocious of its 
kind, inhabits the range of the Rocky Mountains to Mexico, as 
well as the western savannahs. The prairie-wolf, the grey fox, 
the Virginian hare, live in the prairies ; the Wapiti, a large stag, 
inhabits those on both sides of the Rocky Mountains ; and the 
Prongbuck, an antelope fleeter than a horse, roams throughout 
the western part of the continent, and migrates to California and 
Mexico in winter. The musk-ox and shaggy bison are peculiar 
to North America. The musk-ox travels to Parry's Islands in 
the Arctic regions, yet it never has been seen in Greenland or on 
the north-western side of the continent. The shaggy bison goes 
south to the Arkansas, roams in herds of thousands over the 
prairies of the Mississippi and on both sides of the Rocky Moun- 
tains. It never wanders farther north than the 30th parallel, the 
southern limit of the musk-ox. A marmot known as the prarie- 
dog is universal. 

There are at least eight varieties of American dogs, several of 
which are natives of the far north. The lagopus, or isatis, native 
in Spitzbergen and Greenland, is found in all the Arctic regions 
of America and Asia and in some of the Kurile Islands. Dogs 
are employed to draw sledges in Newfoundland and Canada ; 
and the Esquimaux travel drawn by dogs as well as by reindeer. 
The dogs are strong and docile. The Esquimaux dogs were 
mute till they learned to bark from dogs in our discovery ships. 

There are 13 species of the ruminating genus in North Ame- 
rica, including the bison, the musk-ox of the Arctic regions, the 
big-horned sheep, and the goat of the Rocky Mountains. The 
horse, now roaming wild in innumerable herds over the plains of 
South America, was unknown there till the Spanish conquest. 
The quadrupeds of the temperate zone are distributed in distinct 
groups : those of the state of New York, consisting of about 40 
species, are different from those of the Arctic regions, and also 
from those of South Carolina and Georofia ; while in Texas 
another assemblage of species prevails. The Racoon, the Coati- 
mondi, and the Kinkajou are all natives of the southern States. 

'J'here are 118 species of rodentia or gnawing animals in North 
America, rats, mice, squirrels, beavers, &c., many of which, 



428 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

especially in the north, appear to be identical with those in the 
high latitudes of Europe and Asia. The genera of very different 
latitudes are often representative but never identical. Squirrels 
abound in North America ; the grey squirrel is found in thou- 
sands. 

There are 21 species of Opossum in this continent, a family of 
the pouched animals which are so peculiarly characteristic of 
Australia. Of these, the Virginian opossum inhabits the whole 
extent of the American continent between the great Canadian 
lakes and Paraguay, and also the West Indian islands, where it 
is called the manita ; and tw^o other animals of that order live in 
Mexico. There is a porcupine in the United States and Canadian 
forests which cKmbs trees. The bats are different from those in 
Europe, and, excepting two, are very local. In Cahfornia there 
are ounces, polecats, the Berenda (an animal pecuHar to that 
country), and a deer of remarkable size and speed. 

The high land of Mexico forms a very decided line of division 
between the fauna of North and that of the South America ; yet 
some North American animals are seen beyond it, particularly two 
of the bears, and one of the otters, which inhabits the continent 
from the icy ocean to beyond Brazil. On the other hand, the 
Puma, Jaguar, Opossum, Kinkajou, and Peccari, have crossed the 
barrier from South America to California and the United States. 

In the varied and extensive regions of South America there are 
several centres of a peculiar fauna, according as the country is 
mountainous or level, covered with forest or grass, fertile or desert, 
but the mammalia are inferior in size to those of the old world. 
The largest, most powerful, and perfect animals of this class are 
confined to the old continent. The South American quadrupeds 
are on a smaller scale, more feeble and more gentle ; many of them, 
as the toothless group and the sloths, are of anomalous and less 
perfect structure than the rest of the animal creation, but the fauna 
of South America is so local and so peculiar, that the species of 
five of the terrestrial orders, which are indigenous there, are found 
nowhere else. 

The monkey tribe are in myriads in the forests of tropical Ame- 
rica and Brazil, but they never go north of the Isthmus of Darien, 
nor farther south than the Rio de la Plata. They differ widely 
from those in the old world, bearing less resemblance to the human 
race, but they are more gentle and lively, and, notwithstanding 
their agility, are often a prey to the vulture and puma. 

There are two great American families of four-handed animals 
— the sapajous with prehensile tails, by which they suspend them- 
selves, and swing from bough to bough. Some of these inhabi- 
tants of the woods are very noisy, especially the Argualis, a large 
ape whose bawling is heard a mile off. The howlers are gener- 



AMERICAN QUADRUPEDS. 429 

ally very large, and have a wider range than any of the genus ; 
one species, the Mycetus rufimanus or beelzebub, ascends the 
Andes to the height of 11,000 feet. The cebus or weepers, which 
are frequently brought to Europe, belong also to this family ; the 
genus has a greater number of species than any other in the New 
World, but a very narrow location ; they are most abundant in 
Guiana. 

The saquis or bushy-tailed monkeys form the other great Ame- 
rican family. The fox-monkey sleeps during the day ; it frequents 
the deepest forests from the Orinoco to Paraguay. Squirrel-mon- 
keys inhabit the banks of the Orinoco, and the night-monkeys, 
with very large eyes, live in Guiana and Brazil. The marmosets 
are pretty little animals, easily tamed, especially the Midas leonina, 
not more than 7 or 8 inches long. Some American monkeys have 
no thumb, others have a versatile thumb on both their hands and 
feet. In the New World the monkey tribe inhabit the continent 
from Honduras to beyond Brazil, in thousands, yet each kind has 
its own peculiar location. 

The forests are also inhabited by opossums, a family of the mar- 
supial tribe, or animals with pouches, in which they carry their 
young; they are analogous to those which form the distinguishing 
feature of the Australian fauna, but of distinct genera and species. 
Few of these animals are larger than a rat, and they mostly live 
on trees, except one kind which is aquatic, found near the small 
streams from Honduras to Brazil. A species in Surinam carries 
its young upon its back ; the elegant opossum is very numerous 
on the west side of the Andes, and there only. All the opossums 
and the yassacks of this country have thumbs on their hind feet, 
opposite to the toes, so that they can grasp ; they are, moreover, 
distinguished from the Australian family by a long prehensile tail, 
and by greater agility. The numerous tribe of sapajou monkeys, 
the ant-eaters, the kinkajou, and a species of porcupine, have also 
grasping tails, a property of many South American animals. 

Five genera and 20 species of the Edentata are characteristic 
of this continent, and exclusively confined to South America: they 
are the sloths of two kinds, the ai andunau; the Armadilloes, 
Chlamyphores, and Anteaters. The animals of these five genera 
have very different habits : the sloths, as their name implies, are 
the most inactive of animals ; they inhabit the forests from the 
southern limit of Mexico to Rio de Janeiro, and to the height of 
•3000 feet on the Ancles in the region of palms and scitamineae. 
Of these, the common sloth or Ai ranges from Honduras to Brazil; 
while the Unau, the larger of the two, is confined to Guiana. The 
Armadillo, in its coat of mail, is in perpetual motion, and can out- 
run a man in speed. They live on all the plains and table-lands 
of South America even to Paraguay. The onc-banded armadillo 



430 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

rolls itself up like a ball ; the nine-banded species is eaten by the 
natives ; the giant armadillo, 3 feet long, inhabits the forests only. 
Most species of these animals are nocturnal, and burrow in the 
earth in the Pampas. The chlamyphores are also burrowing ani- 
mals, peculiar to the province of Cuj^o on the eastern slope of the 
Chilian Andes ; they have the faculty of sitting upright. The 
ant-eater, larger than a Newfoundland dog, with shorter legs, 
defends itself against the jaguar with its power claws ; it inhabits 
the swampy savannahs and damp forests from Columbia to Para- 
guay, and from the Atlantic to the foot of the Andes ; its flesh, like 
that of some other American animals, has a flavour of musk. The 
little ant-eater has a prehensile tail, and lives on trees in the tro- 
pical forests, feeding on the larvas of bees, wasps, honey, and ants ; 
another of similar habits lives in Brazil and Guiana. The cat tribe 
in South America is beautiful and powerful : the Puma, the lion 
of America, is found both in the mountains and the plains, in great 
numbers ; so different are its habits in different places, that in Chile 
it is timid and flies from a dog; in Peru it is bold, though it rarely 
attacks a man. The Jaguar, which inhabits the lower forests, is 
very abundant, and so ferocious that it has been known to spring 
upon Indians in a canoe; hunting as it sometimes does in troops, 
it has been known to destroy the inhabitants of entire Indian vil- 
lages; it is one of the few South American animals that cross the 
Isthmus of Darien, being found in California, on the territory of 
the Mississippi, and has been seen in Canada. 

The vampire is a very large bat, much dreaded by the natives, 
because it enters their huts at night, and, though it seldom attacks 
human beings, it wounds calves and small animals, which some- 
times die from the loss of blood. The other three South American 
bats are harmless. 

The only ruminating animals that existed in South America prior 
to the Conquest were the four species of the genus Auchenia — 
the Llama, the Alpaca, the Vicuna, and the Guanaco : the three 
first are exclusively confined to the colder and more elevated regions 
of the Peruvian Andes ; the last has a wider geographical range, 
extending to the plains of Patagonia, and even to the southernmost 
extremity of the continent. The Llama inhabits the high valleys 
of the Peru-Bolivian Andes, its favourite region being in the valley 
of the lake of Titicaca: it was the only beast of burtjien possessed 
by the aborigines; hence, we find it wherever the Incas carried 
their conquests and civilization, from the equator to beyond the 
southern tropic. It is still extensively employed by the Indian as 
a beast of burthen, and its wool, though coarse, is used by the 
aborigines : like all domestic animals, it varies in colour; its flesh 
is nauseous, black, and ill tasted. 

The Alpaca, or paco, a gentle and handsome animal, although 



AMERICAN QUADRUPEDS. 431 

more closely allied to the llama than any of its congeners, is a 
distinct species : it inhabits at still more elevated places than the 
llama, its favourite haunts being on the streams descending from 
the snowy peaks : it is only found in a domestic state ; it is reared 
for its wool, which is extremely fine, silky, and long, and Avhich 
now" bears a high price, from its introduction into some of our finest 
woollen tissues. The vicuiia is only found in the wild state, in the 
plains on the Andes, as high as 1500 feet : its wool is much prized 
for its fineness. The animal has a shrill whistle ; it is easily 
domesticated. The Guanaco, by some naturalists considered erro- 
neously as the parent stock of the llama and alpaca, is also only 
found in the wild state : it is seen as far north as lat. 12° S., is 
very abundant and in large flocks on the BoHvian and Chilian 
Andes, and has been seen as far as the southern extremity of the 
American continent. All these animals feed on a species of coarse 
wiry grass called ichu.^^ 

^^ The attention of the scientific world in France has been recently 
directed to the advantages that might arise from the naturalization of 
the Llama tribe in Europe, and especially of its two most useful species, 
the Llama and the Alpaca. M. J. Geoffroy St. Hilaire, a zoologist of 
some note, but rather carried away by theoretical views in a branch of 
science where observation, and observation alone, ought to be our 
guide, and ignorant perhaps of what had been done in England on the 
same subject, where the experiment had long since been tried, and 
with very inadequate success, has presented lately some papers to the 
Academy of Sciences on this subject. We cannot imagine, even if the 
naturalization of the Llama on a large scale was possible, what benefit 
could arise from it to our agriculturists. The wool of the llama is coarse, 
and so infinitely^inferior to the commonest qualities of sheep's wool, that 
in its native country it is seldom used for any other purpose than the 
manufacture of ropes, of a rough carpeting and packing-cloth, and for 
the coarsest apparel of the poor Indian. As to its use as a beast of 
burden, whilst the llama eats as much as the ass, it does not carry 
more than one half what he can, and can scarcely travel one half of 
the same daily distance ; besides, the female llama is useless in this 
respect. The flesh of the llama, as above stated, is greatly below that of 
all our domestic animals, even of the Italian buffalo. 

As to the Alpaca, it is very doubtful if, living as it does in an ex- 
tremely dry, elevated, equable, and clear atmosphere, it would ever 
become accustomed to the damp and variable climate of our northern 
latitudes, or to that of the great European chains of mountains, the Alps 
and the Pyrenees, and if it did, that its wool would not be greatly dete- 
riorated. As to the vicuna, it is purely a wild species, and has hitherto 
resisted all the efforts of the aborigines, the most patient and docile of 
the human race, to render it prolific in its own climate and in domesticity. 

It appears, therefore, that the domestication of the several species of 
Auchenia in Europe would be a costly and useless experiment, on the 
large scale on which it is proposed to try it; indeed, this will appear 
evident when it is known that in the Peru-Bolivian Andes the llama 



432 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

Several species of deer are fouDd in the tropical regions of South 
America, and a remarkable species, with fragile hair like that of 
the roebuck, the cervus (Andium), as high as 11,000 feet in the 
Andes. 

The rodentia, or gnawers, of South America, are very numer- 
ous ; there are 92 in Brazil alone : there are only 8 species of 
squirrels and 64 species of rats and mice, some of which are very 
peculiar. 

The agoutis represent our hares in the plains of Patagonia, in 
Paraguay, &c., and extend as far as Guiana. The family of the 
cavias, or guinea-pigs, are found in Brazil, and some species in 
the great table-lands of the Peru-BoHvian Andes ; the Echymys, 
or spiny rat, is an inhabitant of the shores of the Rio de la Plata 
and Paraguay ; the Vizcacha of the pampas, a burrowing animal, 
inhabits the great plain of Buenos Ayres ; an animal bearing the 
same name is frequent in the rocky districts of the Andes, as high 
as 15,000 feet above the sea ; and the beautiful Chinchilla, nearly 
allied to the latter, whose fur is so highly esteemed, inhabits the 
same regions at the same great elevations in the Andes of Peru, 

and alpaca are daily disappearing to make room for the more useful 
and profitable breed of the common European sheep, whilst, as a beast 
of burden, the ass is everywhere taking its place. 

Connected with this subject, a very singular fact, and, if well estab- 
lished, a very curious one, has been announced by M. Geofifroy St. 
Hilaire, on the authority of one of our countrymen, Dr. Weddel, recently 
returned from South America, that a cross-breed between the Alpaca 
and the Vicuna had been obtained, and that the mules from this cross- 
breed were capable of reproducing this newly-created species, the 
wool of which is represented to be of a valuable quality. Now, if 
there exists in zoological science a fact clearly estabhshed, it is this: 
that within historical periods no new species of vertebrate animal has 
been created — in fact, the great law of the immutability of species. 
The remains of the several wild animals which have been buried for 
more than 30 centuries in the catacombs of Egypt, and in the ruins of 
Nineveh, are perfectly identical with those now existing in the most 
minute details of their anatomical structure. We have examined, in 
the case referred to, the evidence adduced by M. Geoifroy St. Hilaire 
in support of his favourite doctrine, and w^e do not by any means con- 
sider it sufficient to shake the conclusions arrived at by all the great 
zoologists of past and present times — by the Cuviers, the Humboldts, 
and the Owens of our own period — on the impossibility of the produc- 
tion of a new species of animals, or the immutability of species in the 
animal creation. Contradictions to this law we know haA^e been brought 
forward by writers of the theoretical school of naturalists, to support 
favourite theories of their authors; but we believe such dangerous 
doctrines are founded on the vagaries of a school which have ever 
placed in natural history observation in the back, and the dreams of 
imagination in the foreground. 



AUSTRALIAN QUADRUPEDS. 433 

Bolivia, and Chile : the best fur of the chinchilla is collected in 
the Bolivia province of Potosi, and in the Chilian province of Co- 
piabo. 'J'he largest of all the rodentia, the Cabiai (Myopotamus), 
inhabits the banks of the great rivers of tropical America, where 
its habits resemble, according to some travellers, those of the hippo- 
potamus. The Paca, the next in size, is less aquatic in its habits, 
and lives in the dense forests of Brazil and Paraguay. 

It is very remarkable that in a country which has the most 
luxuriant vegetation there should not be one species of hollow- 
horned ruminants, as the ox, sheep, goat, or antelope ; and it is 
still more extraordinary that the existing animals of South America, 
which are so nearly aUied to the extinct inhabitants of the same 
soil, should be so inferior in size not only to them, but even to the 
living quadrupeds of South Africa, which is comparatively a desert. 
The quantity of vegetation in Britain at any one time exceeds the 
quantity on an equal area in the interior of Africa ten-fold, yet 
Mr. Darwin has computed that the weight of 10 of the largest 
south African quadrupeds is 24 times greater than that of the same 
number of quadrupeds of South America ; for in South America 
there is no animal the size of a cow, so that there is no relation 
between the bulk of the species and the vegetation of the countries 
they inhabit. 

The largest animals indigenous in the West Indian islands are 
the Agouti, the Raccoon, the Houtias, a native of the forests of 
Cuba; the Didelphous carnivora and the Kinkajou are common 
also to the continent : the kinkajou is a solitary instance of a car- 
nivorous animal with a prehensile tail. 



AUSTRALIAN aUADRUPEDS. 

Australia is not farther separated from the rest of the world by 
geographical position than by its productions. Its animals are 
creatures by themselves, of an entirely unusual type ; few in spe- 
cies, and still fewer individually, if the vast extent of country be 
taken into consideration; and there has not been one large animal 
discovered. There are only 53 species of land quadrupeds in 
New Holland, and there is not a single example of the ruminating 
or pachydermatous animals, so useful to man, among them; there 
are no native horses, oxen, or sheep, yet all these thrive and mul- 
tiply on the grassy steppes of the country, which seem to be so 
well suited to them. There are none of the monkey tribe ; indeed 
they could not exist in a country where there is no fruit. 

Of the species of indigenous quadrupeds, 40 are found nowhere 
else, and 138 are marsupial or pouched animals, distinguished 
from all others by their young being, as it were, prematurely 
37 



434 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

born and nourished in the pouch till thej'' are mature.^^ Though 
all the members of this numerous family agree in this circum- 
stance, they are dissimilar in appearance, internal structure, in 
their teeth and feet, consequently in their habits ; two genera 
live on vegetable food, one set are gnawers and another toothless. 
The Kangaroo and the kangaroo-rat walk on their hind legs, and 
go by bounds, aided by their strong tail ; the rat holds its food in 
its hands like the squirrel ; the opossum walks on all fours ; the 
phalangers live on trees, and swing by their bushy tail, some 
burrow in the sand ; the flying opossum or Phalanger^ peculiarly 
an Australian animal, lives on the leaves of the gum-tree ; by 
expanding the skin of its sides it supports itself in the air in its 
leaps from bough to bough. Several of the genera come out at 
night only, a characteristeric of many Austrahan animals. 

The pouched tribe vary in size from that of a large dog to a 
mouse ; the kangaroos, which are the largest, are easily domesti- 
cated, and are used for food by the natives. Some go in large 
herds in the mountains, others live in the plains ; however, they 
have become scarce near the British colonies, and, with all other 
native animals, are likely to be extirpated. In Van Diemen's 
Land they are less persecuted ; several species exist there. The 
kangaroos, of which there are 40 species, are more widely dis- 
persed than any of the marsupial animals of the old world. They 
exist not only in New Holland and Van Diemen's Land, but also 
in New Guinea and Java. Some are limited within narrow 
bounds : the banded kangaroo, the handsomest of his tribe, is 
found only in the islands of Shark's Bay, on the west coast of 
Australia. The Wombat is peculiar to Australia, the islands in 
Bass's Strait, and Van Diemen's Land ; to which the two largest 
carnivorous marsupials peculiarly belong, called by the natives 
the tiger hyaena, and the native devil ; both are nocturnal, pre- 
datory, and ferocious. A wild dog in the woods, whose habits 
are ferocious, is, with the tiger hyeena, the largest carnivorous 
animal in Australia. 

^2 There are 8 families, 14 genera, and 123 species of marsupial 
animals, amounting to about one-twelfth of all the mammalia. The 
opossum is American; the seven other families are inhabitants of 
Australia and the Indian Archipelago. 

Of the Didelphidse or opossum family there are 21 species, all inhabi- 
tants of America; the Virginian opossum is about the size of a cat, the 
other species are not larger than rats or mice. A pretty kind in Surinam, 
the D. dorsigera, is so named because it carries its young on its back, 
which hold on by their prehensile tails twisted round that of the 
mother : another species is aquatic, and in its habits resembles the 
otter. 

The DasyuridsB and Phalangers are nocturnal : the Dasyuridse and 
wombats bnrrow. 



AUSTRALIAN QUADRUPEDS. 435 

The gnawing animals are aquatic and very peculiar, but the 
edentata of New Holland are quite anomalous ; of these there are 
two genera, the Ornithorhynchus, or duck-billed mole, and the 
Echidna : they are the link that connects the edentata with the 
pouched tribe, and mammal with oviparous animals. The orni- 
thorhynchus is about 14 inches long, and covered with thick 
brown fur ; its head is similar to that of a quadruped, ending in 
a bill like that of a duck : it has short furry legs with half-webbed 
feet, and the hind feet are armed with sharp claws. It inhabits 
burrows on the banks of rivers, which have two entrances, one 
above, the other below the level of the water, which it seldom 
leaves, feeding on insects and seeds in the mud. 

The echidna is similar in its general structure to the ornitho- 
rhynchus, but entirely different in external appearance, being 
covered with quiJls like the porcupine ; it is also a burrowing 
animal, sleeps during winter, and lives on ants in summer. 

A singular analogy exists between Australia and South America 
in this respect, that the living animals of the two countries are 
stamped with the type of their ancient geological inhabitants, 
while in England and elsewhere the difference between the exist- 
ing and extinct generations of beings is most decided. Australia 
and South America seem still to retain some of those conditions 
that were peculiar to the most ancient eras. Thus, each tribe of 
the innumerable families that inhabit the earth, the air, and the 
waters, has a limited sphere. How wonderful the quantity of life 
that now is, and the myriads of beings that have appeared and 
vanished !^^ Dust has returned to dust through a long succession 
of ages, and has been continually remoulded into new forms of 
existence — not an atom has been annihilated ; the fate of the 
vital spark that has animated it, with a vividness sometimes 
approaching to reason, is one of the deep mysteries of Providence. 

^ Sir Charles Lyell estimates the number of existing species of ani- 
mals and vegetables, independent of the infusoria, to be between one 
and two miUions, which must surely be under the mark, considering 
the enormous quantity of animal life in the ocean, to the amount of 
which we have not even an approximation. If the microscopic and 
infusorial existence be taken into the account, the surface of the globe 
may be viewed as one mass of animal life — perpetually dying — per- 
petually renewed, A drop of stagnant water is a world within itself, 
an epitome of the earth and its successive geological races. A variety 
of microscopic creatures appear, and die ; in a few days a new set suc- 
ceeds; these vanish and give place to a third set, of different kinds 
from the preceding; and the debris of all remain at the bottom of the 
glass. The extinction of these creatures takes place without any appa- 
rent cause, unless a greater degree of putrescence of the water be to 
them what the mighty geological catastrophes were to beings of higher 
orgajiization — the introduction of the new is not more mysterious in 
one case than in the other. 



436 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 

The Distributiorij Condition, and future Prospects of the Human JRace. 

More than 800,000,000 of human beings are scattered over the 
face of the earth, of all nations and kindreds and tongues, and in 
all stages of civilization, from a high state of moral and intellectual 
culture, to savages but little above the animals that contend with 
them for the dominion of the deserts and forests through which 
they roam. This vast multitude is divided into nations and tribes, 
differing in external appearance, character, language, and religion. 
The manner in which thejr are distributed, the affinities of struc- 
ture and language by which they are connected, and the effect 
that climate, food, and customs may have had in modifying their 
external forms, or their moral and mental powers, are subjects of 
much more difficulty than the geographical dispersion of the lower 
classes of animals, inasmuch as the immortal spirit is the chief 
agent in all that concerns the human race. The progress of the 
universal mind in past ages, its present condition, and the future 
prospects of humanity, rouse the deep sympathies of our nature, 
for the high but mysterious destiny of the myriads of beings yet 
to come, who, like ourselves, will be subject for a few brief years 
to the joys and sorrows of this transient state, and fellow-heirs of 
eternal life hereafter. 

Notwithstanding the extreme diversity, personal and mental, in 
mankind, anatomists have found that there are no specific differ- 
ences — that the hideous Esquimaux, the refined and intellectual 
Caucasian, the thick-lipped Negro, and the fair blue-eyed Scan- 
navian, are mere varieties of the same species. The human race 
forms five great varieties marked by strong distinctive characters. 
Many nations are included in each ; distinguished from one ano- 
ther by different languages, manners, and mental qualities, yet 
bearing such a resemblance in general physiognomy and appear- 
ance as to justify a classification apparently anomalous. 

The Caucasian group of nations, which includes the handsom- 
est and most intellectual portion of mankind, inhabit all Europe, 
except Lapland, Finland, and Hungary ; they occupy North 
Africa, as far as the 20th parallel of north latitude, Arabia, Asia 
Minor, Persia, the Himalaya to the Brahmapootra, all India between 
these mountains and the ocean, and the United States of North 
America. These nations are remarkable for a beautifully-shaped 
small head, regular features, fine hair, and symmetrical form. 
The Greeks, Georgians, and Circassians are models of perfection 



HUMAN RACES. 437 

in form, especially the last, which is assumed as the type of this 
class of mankind ; of which it is evident that colour is not a 
characteristic, since they are of all shades, from the fair and 
florid, to the clear dark brown and almost black. This family of 
nations has always been, and still is, the most civilized portion of 
the human race. The inhabitants of Hindostan, the Egyptians, 
Arabians, Greeks, and Romans, were in ancient times what the 
European nations are now. The cause of this remarkable deve- 
lopment of mental power is, no doubt, natural disposition, for the 
difference in the capabilities of nations seems to be as great as 
that of individuals. The origin of spontaneous civilization and 
superiority may generally be traced to the talent of some master- 
spirit gaining an ascendancy over his countrymen. Natural 
causes have also combined with mental — mildness of chmate, fer- 
tihty of soil ; rivers and inland seas, by affording facility of inter- 
course, favoured enterprise and commerce ; and the double-river 
systems in Asia brought distant nations together, and softened 
those hostile antipathies which separate people, multiply lan- 
guages, and reduce all to barbarism. The genius of this family 
of nations has led them to profit by these natural advantages ; 
whereas the American Indians are at this day wandering as bar- 
barous hordes in one of the finest countries in the world. An 
original similarity or even identity of many spoken languages may 
be adverted to as facilitating communication and mental improve- 
ment among the Caucasian variety in very ancient times. 

The Mongol-Tartar family forms the second group of nations. 
They occupy all Asia north of the Persian table-land and of the 
Himalaya ; the whole of Eastern Asia from the Brahmapootra to 
Behring's Straits, together with the Arctic regions of America 
north of Labrador. This family includes the Tourkomans, Mongol 
and Tartar tribes, the Chinese, Indo-Chinese, Japanese, the Esqui- 
maux, and the Hungarians, now located in the very heart of 
Europe. These nations are distinguished by broad skulls and 
high cheek-bones, small black eyes obliquely set, long black hair, 
and a yellow or sallow olive complexion ; some are good-looking, 
and many are well-made. A portion of this family is capable of 
high culture, especially the Chinese, the most civilized nation of 
eastern Asia, although they never have attained the excellence of 
the Caucasian group, probably from their exclusive social system, 
which has separated them from the rest of mankind, and kept 
them stationary for ages ; the peculiarity and difficulty of their 
language have also tended to insulate them. The Kalmuks, who 
lead a pastoral wandering life on the steppes of central Asia, and 
the Esquimaux, have wider domains than any other of this set of 
nations. The Kalmuks are rather a handsome people, and, like 
all who lead a savage life, have acute senses of seeing and hear- 
37* 



438 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

ing. The inhabitants of Finland and Lapland are nearly allied 
to the Esquimaux, who are spread over all the high latitudes of 
both continents — a diminutive race, equally ugly in face and 
form. 

Malayan nations occupy the Indian Archipelago, New Zealand, 
Chatham Island, the Society group, and several other of the Poly- 
nesian islands, together with the Phillipines and Formosa. They 
are very dark, with lank coarse black hair, fiat faces, and ob- 
liquely set eyes. Endowed with great activity and ingenuity, 
they are mild and gentle, and far advanced in the arts of social 
life, in some places ; in others, ferocious and vindictive, daring 
and predatory ; and from their maritime position and skill, they 
are a migratory race. Several branches of this class of nations 
had a very early indigenous civilization, with an original litera- 
ture in peculiar characters of their own. 

The Ethiopian nations are widely dispersed ; they occupy all 
Africa south of the Great Desert, half of Madagascar, the con- 
tinent of Australia, Mindanao, Gilolo, the high lands of Borneo, 
Sumbawa, Timor, and New Ireland. The distinguishing cha- 
racters of this group are, a black complexion, black woolly or 
frizzled hair, thick lips, projecting jaws, high cheek-bones, and 
large prominent eyes. A great variety, however, exists in this 
jetty race : some are handsome both in face and figure, especially 
in Ethiopia; and even in Western Africa, where the Negro 
tribes Hve, there are groups in which the distinctive characters 
are less exaggerated. This great family has not yet attained a 
high place among nations, though by no means incapable of cul- 
tivation ; part of Ethiopia appears to have made considerable 
progress in civilization in very ancient times. But the formida- 
ble deserts, so extensive in some parts of the continent, and the 
unwholesome climate in others, have cut off intercourse with, 
civihzed nations ; and, unfortunately, the infamous traffic in 
slaves, to the disgrace of Christianity, has made the nations of 
tropical Africa more barbarous than they were before : while, on 
the contrary, the Foulahs and other tribes who were converts to 
Mahommedanism 400 years ago, have now large commercial 
towns, cultivated grounds, and schools. The Australians and 
Papuans, who inhabit the eastern islands mentioned, are the 
most degraded of this dark race, and indeed of all mankind. 

The American race, who occupy the whole of that continent 
from 62° N. lat. to the Straits of Magellan, are almost all of a 
reddish brown or copper colour, with long black hair, deep-set 
black eyes, aquiline nose, and often of handsome slender forms. 
In North America they live by hunting, are averse to agriculture, 
slow in acquiring knowledge, but extremely acute, brave, and 
fond of war, and, though revengeful, are capable of generosity 



HUMAN RACES. 439 

and gratitude. In South America many are half-civilized, but a 
greater number are still in a state of utter barbarism. In a family 
so widely scattered great diversity of character prevails, yet 
throughout the whole there is a similarity of manners and habits 
which has resisted all the effects of time and climate. 

Each of these five groups of nations, spread over vast regions, 
is accounted one family ; and if they are so by physical structure, 
they are still more so by language, which expresses the universal 
mind of a people, modified by external circumstances, of which 
none have a greater influence than the geographical features of 
the country they inhabit — an influence that is deepest in the 
early stages of society. The remnants of ancient poetry in the 
south of Scotland partake of the gentle and pastoral character of 
the country ; while Celtic verse, and even the spoken language 
of the Highlander, are full of poetical images of war and stern 
mountain scenery. This is particularly to be observed in the 
noble strains of Homer, and in the heroic poems of the early 
Hindus, which reflect the lofty and sublime character of eastern 
scenery.** As civilization advances, and man becomes more 
intellectual, language keeps pace in the progress. New words 
and new expressions are added, as new ideas occur and new 
things are invented, till at last language itself becomes a study, is 
refined and perfected by the introduction of general terms. The 
improvement in language and the development of the mind 
have been the same in all nations which have arrived at any 
degree of refinement, and shows the identity of human nature in 
every country and climate. The art of printing perpetuates a 
tongue, and great authors immortalize it ; j^et language is ever 
changing to a certain degree, though it never loses traces of its 
origin. Chaucer and Spenser have become obscure ; Shakespeare 
requires a glossary for the modern reader ; and in the few years 
that the United States of America have existed as an independent 
nation, the colloquial language has deviated from the mother- 
tongue. When a nation degenerates, it is spht by jealousy and 

^ Valmiki, the Hindu poet, is supposed to have been contemporary 
■with Homer, if not his predecessor : his great work is the •' Ramayana/"' 
an heroic poem of the highest order, four cantos of which have been 
translated by Gaspare Gorresco, an Italian. According to Dr. Prilchard, 
the four great dynasties of languages in the old continent are — the Indo- 
European or Indo-Germanic, now called the Arian or Iranian languages ; 
tne Turanian or Ugro-Tartarian, the language of high Asia; the Chinese 
and Indo-Chinese, or Monosyllabic; and the Syro-Arabian or Semitic 
languages. The three first are common to Europe and Asia ; the 
fourth, common to Africa and some parts of Asia near Africa. The 
Arians are the ancient Medes and Persian; the Ugrians are the Fins, 
Laplanders, Hungarians, and many Siberian nations. 



440 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

war into tribes, each of which, in process of time, acquires a 
peculiar idiom, and thus the number of dialects is increased, 
though they still retain a similarity ; whereas when masses of 
mankind are united into great pohtical bodies, their languages by 
degrees assimilate to one common tongue, which retains traces of 
all to the latest ages. The form of the dialects now spoken by 
some savage tribes, as the North American Indians, bears the 
marks of a once higher state of civilization. 

More than 2000 languages are spoken, but few are indepen- 
dent ; some are connected by words having the same meaning, 
some by grammatical structure, others by both ; indeed the per- 
manency of language is so great, that neither ages of conquest, 
nor mixing with other nations, have obhte rated the native idiom 
of a people. The French, Spanish, and German retain traces of" 
the common language spoken before the Roman conquest, and 
the Celtic tongue still exists in the British Islands. 

By a comparison of their dialects, nations far apart, and differing 
in every other respect, are discovered to have sprung from a com- 
mon, though remote origin. Thus, all the numerous languages 
spoken by the American Indians, or red men, are similar in 
grammatical structure: an intimate analogy exists in the lan- 
guages of the Esquimaux nations who inhabit the arctic regions 
of both continents. Dialects of one tongue are spoken throughout 
North Africa, as far south as the oasis of Siwah on the east, and 
the Canary Islands on the west. Another group of cognate 
idioms is common to the inhabitants of Equatorial Africa, while 
all the southern part of the continent is inhabited by people whose 
languages are connected. The monosyllabic speech of the 
Chinese and Indo-Chinese shows that they are the same peo- 
ple ; and all the insular nations of the Pacific derived their dia- 
lects from some tribes on the continent of India and the Indian 
Archipelago. Cognate tongues are spoken by the Tartars, 
Mandtchoux, Fins, Laplanders, many of the Siberian nations, 
and by the Hungarians. 

The Persian, Arabic, Greek, Latin, German, and Celtic tongues 
are connected by grammatical structure, and words expressive of 
the same objects and feelings, with the Sanscrit, or sacred lan- 
guage of India; consequently, the nations inhabiting that vast 
extent of country from the mouths of the Ganges to the British 
Isles, the coast of Scandinavia and Iceland, must have had the 
same origin. "The words that fall thoughtlessly from our lips 
in the daily vocations of hfe are no idle sounds, but magic 
symbols which preserve for ever the first migrations of the 
race, and whose antiquity makes Greece and Rome appear but 
of yesterday." 

The number of languages spoken from the Ganges to Scandi- 



HUMAN RACES. 441 

navia, difTering so widely from one another, is a proof of the 
strength of individual character in nations, which can so power- 
fully impress its pecuharities on the same mother tongue. In 
fact every nation, as well as every individual, has its own phy- 
sical, moral, and intellectual organization, which influences its 
language and its whole existence. 

In the Indo-Germanic nations, which have been dominant for 
ages, civilization has been progressive, though not without inter- 
ruptions. Providence has endowed these nations with the richest 
and most ornamental gifts. Imagination has been liberally granted, 
and embodied in all that is subhme and beautiful in architecture, 
sculpture, painting, and poetry. In strength of intellect and 
speculation, in philosophy, science, laws, and the political prin- 
ciples of society, they have been pre-eminent. 

The prevailing races of mankind now inhabiting Europe are 
the Teutonic, Celtic, and Sclavonian. In the greater part of the 
continent these races are mixed, but the blood is purely Teutonic 
throughout Iceland, Scandinavia, round the Gulf of Bothnia, in 
Denmark, Germany, and the east of England from Portsmouth to 
the Tyne. Pure Celtic blood is confined to the Basque Provinces 
in Spain, the south and south-west of France, a part of the Grisons 
and Switzerland, and some part of Great Britain. The Sclavonian 
blood is widely dispersed in middle Russia, from the Ural Moun- 
tains to the west of the Valdai table-land, and from Novogorod to 
the lower course of the Don. The three races have been much 
improved by mixture, in appearance, energy, and versatility of 
mind. 

It is extraordinary that nations should lose their vitality without 
any apparent cause ; throughout the Indian Archipelago there is 
no longer any one great Malayan nation, in Europe pure Celtic 
blood has been on the decline for twenty centuries, and even the 
mixed Celtic variety has not increased in proportion to the Teu- 
tonic, although for 2000 years they have been exposed to the 
same external circumstances. 

At present the Teutonic race, including the inhabitants of 
North America and the British colonies, considerably outnumber 
the Celtic, though its numbers were far inferior in ancient times. 
The Teutonic variety has subdued and even exterminated the 
other varieties in its progress towards the west ; it is undoubtedly 
the most vigorous, both in body and mind, of all mankind, and. 
seems destined to conquer and civilize the whole world. It is a 
singular fact, whatever the cause may be, that the Celts are inva- 
riably Catholic, while the Teutonic population is inclined to Pro- 
testantism. 

Various other races inhabit Europe, much inferior in numbers 
to those above mentioned, though occasionally mixed with them, 



442 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

as the Turks, Fins, the Samojedes, who live on the shores of the 
White Sea and in the north-east of Russia, and the Hungarians, 
the higher class of which are a fine race of men, and on a par 
with the most civilized of the European nations. There are 
many mixed Tartar tribes, chiefly in the south and east of the 
Russian territories ; also Jews and Gipsies, who live among all 
nations, yet mix with none.^^ 

The inhabitants of Great Britain are of Celtic and Teutonic 
origin. The Celtic blood is purest in Cornwall and the Scilly 
Islands, in Wales, and the Isle of Man : in the highlands of Scot- 
land and the Hebrides it is more mixed than is generally sup- 
posed, as plainly appears from the frequency of red hair and blue 
eyes. In some parts of Ireland there is pure Celtic blood, but 
throughout the greater part of that country it is mixed, although 
the Celtic character predominates ; but in Ulster, where the 
earhest colony settled, the blood is purely Teutonic. In Ireland 

^ European Population. 

Fure blood. 

Teutonic . . . . . . . . 52,000,000 

Sclavonian . . . . . . . . 50,000,000 

Celtic . . . . . . . . . 12,000,000 

Magyar . . ... . . . . 9,000,000 

Fins and Samojedes . . . . . . 3,000,000 

Tartar . 2,000,000 

Jews 2,000,000 

Total European population of pure blood . . 130.000,000 

Mixed blood in Europe. 

Teutonic Celtic . - 22,000,000 

Teutonic Sclavonian 6,000,000 

Teutonic mixed with Walloons in Belgium . . 1,200,000 

Teutonic Northmen in Normandy .... 1,500,000 

Celtic in its different crosses 56,000,000 

Sclavonian 6,000,000 

Lettons 2,000,000 

Turks 4,000,000 

Turco-Tatar-Sclavonic in centre, south-east, and east 

of Russia 2,600,000 

Kalmuk, between the rivers Volga and Ural . 300,000 

The number of people of mixed blood in Europe . 101,600,000 
The total population of Europe, pure and mixed, amounts to about 232 
millions, including 600,000 Gipsies. The Teutonic population in the 
United States of North America and in the British colonies amounts to 
20 millions ; so that the total number of people of Teutonic blood is 
rather more than 100 millions. — Notes accompanying the Ethnographic 
Map of Europe, by Dr. Gustaf Kombst : " Phys. Atlas." 



POPULATION OF EUROPE. 443 

the difference in the organization of the two races is strongly- 
marked : placed under the same circumstances, the Teutonic 
part of the population has prospered, which, unfortunately, has 
not been the case with the Celtic.^^ 

The dialects spoken in the Celtic districts are closely allied to 
the Semitic languages of Asia, and to one another. The Cornish 
is worn out, the Manx is nearly so, and the Gaelic is dechning 
fast in the highlands of Scotland. 

The Roman invasion had no effect on the Anglo-Saxon or old 
English, a language of Teutonic origin, but the Normans in 
ancient times had altered it considerably, and in modern times 
the English tongue has unfortunately been corrupted by the in- 
troduction of French, Latin, and Latinized words. Scotch spoken 
throughout the Lowlands of Scotland is a language independent 
of the Enghsh, though of the same stock ; it is derived from the 
low German, the Frisian, Dutch, and Flemish, and differs widely 
from the Anglo-Saxon. 

No circumstance in the natural world is more inexplicable than 
the diversity of form and colour in the human race. It had 
already begun in the antediluvian world, for " there were giants 
in the land in those days." No direct mention is made of colour 
at that time, unless the mark set upon Cain, " lest any one finding 
him should kill him," may allude to it. Perhaps, also, it may be 
inferred that black people dwelt in Ethiopia, or the land of Cush, 

^s Population or Great Britain and Ireland. 

On an average the pure-blooded population amounts to 
Teutonic in England^ Scotland, and in the east and 

north-east of Ireland 10,000,000 

Celtic in Cornwall, Wales, the Scottish Highlands, 

and Ireland 6,000,000 

The pure-blooded inhabitants amounts to . . 16,000,000 

Mixed blood. 
Mixture in which the Teutonic blood predominates 6,000,000 
Mixture in which the Celtic blood predominates 4,000,000 

10,000,000 
In all 26,000,000 of inhabitants. 

Notes accompanying the Ethnographic Map of Great Britain and 
Ireland, by Gustaf Kombst : " Phys. Atlas." 

The fear that Britain may be ruined by over population may be 
allayed by considering that we are ignorant of the immense treasures 
and inexhaustible resources of the natural world — that the injrenuity of 
man is infinite, and will continually discover new powers and innu- 
merable combinations that will furnish sources of wealth and happiness 
to millions. 



444 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

which means black in the Hebrew language. At all events, the 
difference now existing must have arisen after the flood, conse- 
quently all must have originated with Noah, whose wife, or the 
wives of his sons, may have been of different colours, for aught 
we know. 

Many instances have occurred in modern times, of albinos and 
red-haired children having been born of black parents, and these 
have transmitted their peculiarities to their descendants for several 
generations, but it may be doubted whether pure-blooded white 
people have had perfectly black offspring. The varieties are 
much more likely to have arisen from the effects of chmate, food, 
customs, and civilization upon migratory groups of mankind ; and 
of such, a few instances have occurred in historical times, limited, 
however, to small numbers and particular spots ; but the great 
mass of nations had received their distinctive characters at a very 
early period. The permanency of type is one of the most striking 
circumstances, and proves the length of time necessary to produce 
a change in national structure and colour. A nation of Ethiopians 
existed 3450 years ago, which emigrated from a remote country 
and settled near Egypt, and there must have been black people 
before the age of Solomon, otherwise he would not have alluded 
to colour, even poetically. The national appearance of the Ethio- 
pians, Persians, and Jews, has not varied for more than 3000 
years, as appears from the ancient Egyptian paintings in the 
tomb of Rhameses the Great, discovered at Thebes by Belzoni, 
in which the countenance of the modern Ethiopian and Persian, 
can be readily recognized, and the Jewish features and colour are 
identical with those of the Israelites daily met with in London. 
Civilization is supposed to have great influence on colour, having 
a tendency to make the dark shade more general, and it appears 
that, in the crossing of two shades, the offspring takes the com- 
plexion of the darker and the form of the fairer. But as there is 
no instance of a new variety of mankind having been established 
as a nation since the Christian era, there must either have been 
a greater energy in the causes of change before that time, or, 
brief as the span of man on earth has been, a wrong estimate of 
time antecedent to the Christian period must have made it 
shorter.^'' 

s'' From the discrepancies in the chronological systems it is evident 
that the actual period of man's creation is not accurately known. The 
Chevalier Bunsen has ascertained, from monumental inscriptions; that 
the successive Egyptian dynasties may be traced back to Meres, 3640 
years before the Christian era, and from the high state of civilization 
during the reign of that prince, proved by the magnificence of the works 
thus executed, he infers that the Egyptians must have existed 500 
years pievious to their consolidation into one empire by him^ which 



PERMANENCY OF TYPE. 445 

Darkness of complexion has been attributed to the sun's power 
from tiie age of Solomon to this day — " Look not upon me, be- 
cause I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me ;" and 
there can be no doubt that, to a certain degree, the opinion is well 
founded. The invisible rays in the solar beams, which change 
vegetable colours, and have been employed with such remarkable 
effect in the Daguerreotype, act upon every substance on which 
they fall, producing mysterious and wonderful changes in their 
molecular state — man not excepted.^ 

Other causes must have been combined to occasion all the varie- 
ties we now see, otherwise every nation between the tropics would 
be of the same hue, whereas the sooty Negro inhabits equatorial 
Africa, the Red man equinoctial America, and both are mixed with 
fairer tribes. In Asia, the Rohillas, a fair race of Affghan extrac- 
tion, inhabit the plains north of the Ganges : the Bengalee and 
the mountaineers of Nepaul are dark, and the Mahrattas are yel- 
low. The complexion of man varies with height and latitude ; 
some of the inhabitants of the Himalaya and Hindoo Koosh are 
fair, and even a red-haired race is found on the latter. There are 
fair-haired people with blue eyes in the Ruddhua mountains in 
Africa. The Kabyles, that inhabit the country behind Tunis and 
Algiers, are similar in complexion to the nations in high northern 
latitudes'. This correspondence, however, only maintains with 
regard to the northern hemisphere, for it is a well-known fact that 
the varieties of the numerous species in the great southern conti- 
nents are much more similar in physical characters to the native 
races of the torrid zone, than any of the aboriginal people of the 
northern regions. Even supposing that diversity of colour is owing 
to the sun's rays only, it is scarcely possible to attribute the thick 
lips, the woolly hair, and the entire difference of form, extending 
even to the very bones and skull, to anything but a concurrence 
of circumstances, not omitting the invisible influence of electricity, 
which pervades every part of the earth and air — and possibly 
terrestrial magnetism. 

The flexibihty of man's constitution enables him to live in every 
climate, from the equator to the ever-frozen coasts of Nova Zembla 

goes back to the renewed period of man's creation. Compared with 
geological periods, man is of very recent creation, as appears from the 
vast extent of uninhabited land, but which would require ages and ages 
to people, even if the increase of population were as rapid ^as in the 
United States of North America. 

^ Dark-coloured substances absorb more of the sun's heat than light- 
coloured ones ; therefore, the black skins of the natives of tropical cli- 
mates absorb more heat than fair skins, but, from some unknown cause, 
the black skin is protected from a degree of heat that would bhster a 
fair one. 

88 



446 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY, 

and Spitzbergen, and that chie% by his capability of bearing the 
most extreme changes of temperature and diet, which are probably 
the principal causes of the variety in his form. It has already 
been mentioned that oxygen is inhaled with the atmospheric air, 
and 'also taken in by the pores on the skin ; part of it combines 
chemically with the carbon of the food, and is expired in the form 
of carbonic acid gas and water; that chemical action is the cause 
of vital force and heat in man and animals. The quantity of food 
must be in exact proportion to the quantity of oxygen inhaled, 
otherwise disease and loss of strength would be the consequence. 
Since cold air is incessantly carrying off warmth from the skin^ 
more exercise is requisite in winter than in summer, in cold cli- 
mates than in warm ; consequently, more carbon is necessary in 
the former than in the latter, in order to maintain the chemical 
action that generates heat, and to ward off the destructive effects 
of the oxygen, which incessantly strives to consume the body. 
Animal food, wine, and spirits, contain many times more carbon 
than fruit and vegetables, therefore animal food is much more 
necessary in a cold than in a hot climate. The esquimaux, who 
lives by the chace, and eats 10 or 13 pounds weight of meat and 
fat in 24 hours, finds it not more than enough to keep up his strength 
and animal heat, while the indolent inhabitant of Bengal is suffi- 
ciently suppHed with both by his rice diet. Clothing and warmth 
make the necessity for exercise and food much less, by diminish- 
ing the waste of animal heat. Hunger and cold united soon con- 
sume the body, because it loses its power of resisting the action of 
the oxygen, which consumes part of our substance, when food is 
wanting. Hence, nations inhabiiing warm climates have no great 
'merit in being abstemious, nor are those guilty of committing an 
excess who live more freely in colder countries. The arrange- 
ment of Divine Wisdom is to be admired in this as in all other 
things, for, if man had only been capable of hving on vegetable 
food, he never could have had a permanent residence beyond the 
latitude where corn ripens. The Esquimaux, and all the inhabi- 
ants of the very high latitudes of both continents, live entirely on 
fish and animal food. What effects the difference of food may 
have upon the intellect is not known. 

A nation or tribe driven by war, or any other cause, from a warm 
to a cold country, or the contrary, would be forced to change their 
food both in quality and quantity, which in the lapse of ages might 
produce an alteration in the external form and internal structure. 
The probabiKty is still greater, if the entire change that a few 
years produces in the matter of which the human frame is com- 
posed be considered. At every instant during fife, with every 
motion, voluntary and involuntary, with every thought and every 
exercise of the brain, a portion of our substance becomes dead,. 



^ INDIVIDUALITY. 447 

separates from the living part, combines with some of the inhaled 
oxygen, and is removed. By this process it is supposed that the 
whole body is renewed every 7 years ; individuality, therefore, 
depends on the spirit, which retains its identity during all the 
changes of its earthly house, and sometimes even acts indepen- 
dently of it. When sleep is restoring exhausted nature, the spirit 
is often awake and active, crowding the events of years into a few 
seconds, and, by its unconsciousness of time, anticipates eternity. 
Every change of food, climate, and mental excitement, must have 
their influence on the reproduction of the mortal frame ; and thus 
a thousand causes may co-operate to alter whole races of mankind 
placed under new circumstances, time being granted. 

The difference between the effects of manual labour and the 
efforts of the brain appears in the intellectual countenance of the 
educated man, compared with that of the peasant, though even he 
is occasionally stamped with nature's own nobility. The most 
savage people are also the ugliest. Their countenance is deformed 
by violent unsubdued passions, anxiety, and suffering. Deep sen- 
sibility gives a beautiful and varied expression, but every strong 
emotion is unfavourable to perfect regularity of feature ; and of 
that the Greeks were well aware when they gave^that calmness 
of expression and repose to their unrivalled statues. The refining 
effects of high culture, and, above all, the Christian religion, by 
subduing the evil passions, and encouraging the good, are more 
than anything calculated to improve even the external appearance. 
The countenance, though perhaps. of less regular form, becomes 
expressive of the amiable and benevolent feelmgs of the heart, the 
most captivating and lasting of all beauty .^9 

Thus, an infinite assemblage of causes may be assigned as hav- 
ing produced the endless varieties in the human race ; but the fact 
remains an inscrutable mystery. But amidst all the physical 
vicissitudes man has undergone, the species remains permanent ; 
and let those who think that the difference in the species of ani- 
mals and vegetables arises from diversity of conditions, consider, 
that no circumstances whatever can degrade the form of man to 
that of the monkey — or elevate the monkey to the form of man. 

Animals and vegetables, being the sources of man's sustenance, 
have had the chief influence on his destiny and location, and have 
induced him to settle in those parts of the world where he could 

^3 The countenances of the Fuegians brought to England in 1830 by 
Captain Fitzroy improved greafly in expression by their intercourse 
with civilized men, but they bad not returned to their savage brethren 
more than a year before their whole appearance was completely 
changed; the look of intelligence they had acquired was gone; and 
when compared with likenesses that had been taken of them when in 
England; they were not to be recognized as the same persons. 



448 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

procure them in greatest abundance. Wherever the chace or the 

spontaneous productions of the earth supply him with food, he is 
completely savage, and only a degree further advanced where he 
plants the palm and the banana; where grain is the principal food, 
industry and intelligence are most perfectly developed, as in the 
temperate zone. On that account the centres of civilization have 
generally been determined, not by a hot, but by a genial climate, 
fertile soil, by the vicinity of the sea-coast or great rivers, affording 
the means of fishing and transport, which last has been one of the 
chief causes of the superiority of Europe and Southern Asia, 
The mineral treasures of the earth have been the means of assem- 
bling great masses of men in Siberia and the table-land of the 
Andes, and have given rise to many great cities, both in the Old 
and the New World. Nations inhabiting elevated table-lands and 
high ungenial latitudes have been driven there by war, or obliged 
to wander from countries where the population exceeded the means 
of living — a cause of migration to which both language and tradi- 
tion bear testimony. The belief in a future state, so universal, 
shown by respect for the dead, has no doubt been transmitted from 
nation to nation. The American Indians, driven from their hunt- 
ing-grounds, still make pilgrimages to the tombs of their fathers ; 
and these tribes alone, of all uncivilized mankind, worship the 
Great Spirit as the invisible God and Father of all — a degree of 
abstract refinement which could hardly have sprung up sponta- 
neously among a rude people, and which must have been trans- 
mitted from races who held the Jewish faith. 

It is probable that America had been peopled from Asia before 
the separation of the continents by Behring's Straits, and there is 
reason to believe that the location of various races of mankind, now 
insulated, may have taken place before the separation of the lands 
by mediterranean seas ; whilst others, previously insulated, may 
be now united by the drying up of inland seas, as those which 
covered the Sahara desert, and the great hollow round the Cas- 
pian Sea, of which it and the Black Sea are probably the rem- 
nants. 

M. Boue has observed that mountain chains running nearly east 
and west establish much more striking differences among nations 
than those which extend from north to south — a circumstance con- 
firmed by observation through the history of mankind. The Scan- 
dinavian Alps have not prevented the countries on both sides from 
being occupied by people of a common descent; Avhile the feeble 
barrier of the Cheviot Hills, between England and Scotland, and 
the moderate elevation of the Highland mountains, have prevented 
the amalgamation of the Anglo-Saxons and the Celts, even in a 
period of high civihzation. The Franks and Belgians are distinct, 
though separated by hills of still less elevation. For the same 



CIVILIZING INFLUENCES. 449 

reason the Spaniards and Italians differ far more from their neigh- 
bours on the other side of the eastern and western chains, than 
the Spaniards do from the Portuguese, or the Piedmontese from 
the Provencals. A similar distinction prevails throughout Asia; 
and in America, where all the principal chains run north and south, 
there is but one copper-coloured race throughout the continent, 
which stretches over more climates than Europe and Africa, or 
even than Asia and Australia, united. It is along chains running 
north and south that the fusion of languages takes place, and not 
along those of an easterly and westerly direction. From Poland, 
for instance, there are intermediate insensible gradations through 
Germany into France ; while in crossing from a German district 
of the Alps to the valleys of Italy, different tribes and different 
languages are separated by a single mountain. Even wars and 
conquest have ever been more easy in one direction than in the 
other. The difference in the fauna and flora on the two sides of 
the great table-land and mountains of Asia is a striking illustration 
of the influence which high lands running east and west have on 
natural productions, and thus, both directly and indirectly, they 
affect the distribution of mankind. 

The circumstances which thus determine the location of na- 
tions, and the fusion or separation of their languages, must, con- 
jointly with moral causes, operate powerfully on their character. 
The minds of mankind, as well as their fate, are influenced by 
the soil on which they are born and bred. The natives of ele- 
vated countries are attached to their mountains ; the Dutch are as 
much attached to their meadows and canals ; and the savage, 
acquainted only with the discomforts of life, is unhappy when 
brought among civilized man. Early associations never entirely 
leave us, however much our position in life may alter, and strong 
attachments are formed to places which generate in us habits dif- 
fering from those of other countries. 

The Bakic and Mediterranean Seas have had no inconsiderable 
share in civilizing Europe ; one combined with a cold and gloomy 
climate, the other with a warm and glowing sky, have developed 
dissimilar characters in the temperament and habits of the surround- 
ing nations, originally dissimilar in race. The charms of climate, 
and the ease with which the necessaries of Hfe are procured, were 
favourable to the development of imagination in the more south- 
ern nations, and to an indolent enjoyment of their advantages. In 
the north, on the contrary, the task imposed upon man was 
harder, and perhaps more favourable to strength of character. 
The Dutch owe their industry and perseverance to their unceas- 
ing struggle against the encroachments of the ocean ; the British 
are indebted to their insular position for their maritime disposition, 
and to the smallness of their country and the richness of their 
38* 



450 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

mines, for their manufacturing and colonizing habits ; the mili- 
tary propensities of the French, to the necessity of maintaining 
their independence among the surrounding nations, as well as to 
ambition and the love of fame. 

Thus, external circumstances materially modify the character 
of nations, but the original propensities of race are never eradi- 
cated, and they are nowhere more prominent than in the pro- 
gress of the social state in France and England. The vivacity 
and speculative disposition of the Celt appear in the rapid and 
violent changes of government and in the succession of theoreti- 
cal experiments in France ; while in Britain the deliberate slow- 
ness, prudence, and accurate perceptions of the Teuton are mani- 
fest in the gradual improvement and steadiness of their political 
arrangements. "The prevalent political sentiment of Great 
Britain is undonhtedly conservative, in the best sense of the word, 
with a powerful under-current of democratic tendencies. This 
gives great power and strength to the political and social body of 
this country, and makes revolutions by physical force almost 
impossible. It can be said, without assumption or pretension, 
that the body politic of Britain is in a sounder state of health than 
any other in Europe ; and that those know very little of this 
country, who, led away by what they see in France, always 
dream of violent and revolutionary changes in the constitution. 
Great Britain is the only country in Europe which has had the 
good fortune to have all her institutions worked out and framed 
by her in a strictly organic manner — that is, in accordance with 
organic wants, which require different conditions at different 
and successive stages of national development — and not by theo- 
retical experiments, as in many other countries which are still in 
a state of excitement consequent upon these experiments. The 
social character of the people of this country, besides the features 
which they have in common with other nations of Teutonic origin, 
is, on the whole, domestic, reserved, aristocratic, and exclusive. "^^ 

so Johnston's " Physical Atlas.'' 

The average age of a nation, or the mean duration of life, has a con- 
siderable influence on the character of a people. The average age of 
the population of England and Wales is 26 years 7 months. By the 
census, the average age of the population of the United States of North 
America is 22 years 2 months. In England there are 1365 persons in 
every 10,000, who have attained 60 years of age, and consequently 
of experience; while, in the United States, only 830 in each 10,000 
have arrived at that age : hence, in the United States, the moral pre- 
dominance of the young and passionate is greatest. In Ireland there 
are 1050 persons in every 10,000 of the population, above 50 years of 
age, to exercise the influence of their age and experience upon the com- 
munity — an influence that will diminish with the progress of emanci- 
pation. 



EXTERNAL INFLUENCES. 451 

In speculating upon the effects of external circumstances, and 
on the original dispositions of the different races of mankind, the 
stationary and unchanged condition is a curious phenomenon in 
the history of nations. The inhabitants of Hindostan have not 
advanced within the historical period ; neither have the Chinese. 
The Peruvians and Mexicans had arrived at a considerable degree 
of civilization, at which they became stationary, never having 
availed themselves of their fine country and noble rivers ; and 
their conquerors, the Spaniards, degenerated into the same apathy 
with the conquered. The unaccountable gipsies have for ages 
maintained their peculiarities in all countries ; so have the Jews 
and Armenians, who by the perseverance with which they have 
adhered to their language and institutions, have resisted the 
influence of physical impressions. 

The influence of external circumstances on man is not greater 
than his influence on the material world. He cannot create 
power, it is true, but he dexterously avails himself of the powers 
of nature to subdue nature. Air, fire, water, steam, gravitation, 
his own muscular strength, and that of animals rendered obedient 
to his will, are the instruments by which he has converted the 
desert into a garden, drained marshes, cut canals, made roads, 
turns the course of rivers, cleared away forests in one country, 
and planted them in another. By these operations he has altered 
the chmate, changed the course of local winds, increased or 
diminished the quantity of rain, and softened the rigour of the 
seasons. In the time of Strabo, the cold in France was so 
intense, that it was thought impossible to ripen grapes north of 
the Cevennes : the Rhine and the Danube were every winter 
covered with ice thick enough to bear any weight. Man's influ- 
ence on vegetation has been immense, but the most important 
changes had been effected in the antediluvian ages of the world. 
Cain was a tiller of the ground. The oHve, the vine, and the fig- 
tree have been cultivated time immemorial : wheat, rice, and 
barley, have been so long in an artificial state, that their origin is 
unknown ; even maize, which is a Mexican plant, was in use 
among the American tribes before the Spanish conquest ; and 
tobacco was already used by them to allay the pangs of hunger, 
to which those who depend upon the chace for food must be 
exposed. Most of the ordinary culinary vegetables have been 
Known for ages, and it is remarkable that in these days, when 
our gardens are adorned with innumerable native plants in a cul- 
tivated state, few new grains, vegetables, or fruits have been 
reclaimed ; the old have been produced in infinite variety, and 
many brought from foreign countries : yet there must exist many 
plants capable of cultivation, as unpromising in their wild state as 
(he turnip or carrot. 



452 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

Some families of plants are more susceptible of improvement 
than others, and, like man himself, can bear almost any climate. 
One kind of wheat grows to 62° N. latitude ; rye and barley are 
hardier, and succeed still farther north ; and few countries are 
absoutely without grass. The cruciform tribe abounds in useful 
plants, indeed that family, together with the solanum, the papilio- 
naceous and umbelliferous tribes, furnish most of our vegetables. 
Many plants, like animals, are of one colour only in their wild 
state, and their blossoms are single. Art has introduced the 
variety we now see in the same species, and, by changing the 
anthers of the wild flowers into petals, has produced double blos- 
soms : by art, too, many plants, natives of warm countries, have 
been naturalized in colder climates. Few useful plants have 
beautiful blossoms — but if utility were the only object, of what 
pleasure should we be deprived ! Refinement is not wanting in 
the inmates of a cottage covered with roses and honeysuckle ; and 
the little garden cultivated amidst a life of toil, tells of a peaceful 
home. 

Among the objects which tend to the improvement of our race, 
the flower-garden and the park adorned with native and foreign 
trees have no small share : they are the greatest ornaments of the 
British Islands ; and the love of a country life, which is so strong 
a passion, is chiefly owing to the law of primogeniture, by which 
the head of a family is secured in the possession and transmission 
of his undivided estate, and therefore each generation takes pride 
and pleasure in adorning the home of its forefathers. 

Animals yield more readily to man's influence than vegetables, 
and certain classes have greater flexibility of disposition and struc- 
ture than others. Those only are capable of being perfectly 
reclaimed that have a natural tendency for it, without which 
man's endeavours would be unavailing. This predisposition is 
greatest in animals which are gregarious and follow a leader, as 
elephants, dogs, horses, and cattle do in their wild state ; yet even 
among these some species are refractory, as the buffalo, which 
can only be regarded as half-reclaimed. The canine tribe, on the 
contrary, are capable of the greatest attachment, not the dog only, 
man's faithful companion, but even the wolf, and especially the 
hysena, generally believed to be so ferocious. After an absence 
of many months, a hyaena which had been the fellow-passenger 
of a friend of the author's in a voyage from India, recognized his 
voice before he came in sight, and on seeing him it showed the 
greatest joy, lay down like a dog and Hcked his hands. He had 
been kind to it on the voyage, and no animal forgets kindness, 
which is the surest way of reclaiming them. There cannot be a 
greater mistake than the harsh and cruel means by which dogs 
and horses are too commonly trained ; but it is long before man 



MAN'S INFLUENCE. 453 

learns that his power is mental, and that it is his intellect alone 
that has given him dominion over the earth and its inhabitants, of 
which so many far surpass him in physical strength. The useful 
animals were reclaimed by the early inhabitants of Asia, and it is 
very remarkable, notwithstanding the enterprise and activity of 
the present times, that among the multitudes of animals that 
inhabit America, Central and Southern Africa, Australia and the 
Indian Archipelago, 4 only have been domesticated, yet many 
may be capable of becoming useful to man. Of 35 species, of 
which we possess one or more domestic races, 31 are natives of 
Asia, Europe, and North Africa ; these countries are far from 
being exhausted, and a complete hemisphere is yet unexplored. 
An attempt has been made to domesticate the Llama, the Dzig- 
getai, Zebra, and some species of Indian deer, but the success is 
either doubtful or the attempt has not been followed up. Little 
has been left for modern nations but the improvement of the 
species, and in that they have been very successful. The variety 
of horses, dogs, cattle, and sheep is beyond number. The form, 
colour, and even the disposition, may be materially altered, and 
the habits engrafted are transmitted to the offspring, as instinctive 
properties independent of education. Domestic fowls go in flocks 
on their native meads when wild. There are, however, instances 
of solitary birds being tamed to an extraordinary degree, as the 
raven, one of the most sagacious. 

Man's necessities and pleasure have been the cause of great 
changes in the animal creation — and his destructive propensity of 
still greater. Animals are intended for our use, and field-sports 
are advantageous by encouraging a daring and active spirit in 
young men, but the utter destruction of some races, in order to 
protect those destined for his pleasure, is too selfish. Animals 
soon acquire a dread of man, which becomes instinctive and 
hereditary ; in newly-discovered uninhabited countries, birds and 
beasts are so tame as to allow themselves to be caught ; whales 
scarcely got out of the way of the ships that first navigated the 
Arctic Ocean, but now they universally have a dread of the com- 
mon enemy : whales and seals have been extirpated in various 
places ; sea-fowl and birds of passage are not likely to be extin- 
guished, but many land animals and birds are vanishing before 
the advance of civilization. Drainage, cultivation, cutting down 
of forests, and even the introduction of new plants and animals, 
destroy some of the old, and alter the relations between those that 
remain. The inaccessible cliffs of the Himalaya and Andes will 
afford a refuge to the eagle and condor, but the time will come when 
the mighty forests of the Amazons and Orinoco will disappear with 
the myriads of their joyous inhabitants. The lion, the tiger, and 
the elephant will be known only by ancient records. Man, the lord 



454 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

of the creation, will extirpate the noble creatures of the earth- 
but he himself will ever be the slave of the canker-worm and the 
fly. Cultivation may lessen the scourge of the insect tribe, but 
God's great army will ever, from time to time, appear suddenly — 
no one knows from whence ; the grub will take possession of the 
ground, and the locust will come from the desert and destroy the 
fairest prospects of the harvest. 

Though the unreclaimed portion of the animal creation is falling' 
before the progress of improvement, yet man has been both the 
voluntary and the involuntary cause of the introduction of new 
animals and plants into countries in which they were not natives. 
The Spanish conquerors little thought that the descendants of the 
few cattle and horses they allowed to run wild, would resume the 
original character of their species, and roam in hundreds of thou- 
sands over the savannahs of South America. Wherever man is, 
civilized or savage, there also is the dog, but he too has in some 
places resumed his native state and habits, and hunts in packs. 
Domestic animals, grain, fruit, vegetables, and the weeds that grow 
with them, have been conveyed by colonists to all settlements. 
Birds and insects follow certain plants into countries in which 
they were never seen before. Even the inhabitants of the waters 
change their abode in consequence of the influence of man. Fish, 
natives of the rivers on the coast of the Mexican Gulf, have 
migrated by the canals to the heart of North America ; and the 
mytilus polymorphus, a shell-fish brought to the London Docks 
in the timbers of ships from the brackish waters of the Black Sea 
and its tributary streams, has spread into the interior of England 
by the Croydon and other canals. 

The influence of man on man is a power of the highest order, 
far surpassing that which he possesses over inanimate or animal 
nature. It is, however, as a collective body, and not as an indi- 
vidual, that he exercises this influence over his fellow-creatures. 
The free-will of man, nay, even his most capricious passions, 
neutralize each other, when large numbers of men are considered. 
Professor Q-uetelet has most ably proved, that the greater the 
number of individuals, the more completely does the will of each, 
as well as all individual peculiarities, moral or physical, disap- 
pear, and allow the series of general facts to predominate, which 
depend upon the causes by which society exists and is preserved. 
The uniformity with which the number of marriages in Belgium 
occurred in 20 years, places the neutralization of the free-will of 
the individual man beyond a doubt, and is one of many instances 
of the importance of average quantities in arriving at general 
laws. 

Certainly no event in a man's life depends more upon his free 
will than his marriage, yet it appears from the records in Brussels, 



HUMAN INVENTIONS. 455 

that nearly the same number of marriages take place every year, 
in the towns as well as in the country, and, moreover, that the 
same constancy prevails in each province, though the numbers of 
the people are so small, that accidental causes might be more 
likely to affect the general result than when the numbers are 
larger. In fact the whole affair passes as if the inhabitants of 
Belgium had agreed to contract nearly the same number of mar- 
riages annually, at each stage of life. Young people may possi- 
bly be in some degree under the control of parents, but there can 
be no restraint on the free will of men of 30 and women of 60 
years of age, yet the same number of such incongruous marriages 
do annually take place between men and women at those unsuit- 
able ages — a fact which almost exceeds belief. The day fixed for 
a wedding is of all things most entirely dependent on the will of 
the parties, yet even here there is regularity in the annual recur- 
rence. (See Table on next page.) 

With regard to crimes also, M. Q,uetelet observes that the same 
number of crimes of the same description are committed annually, 
with remarkable uniformity, even in the case of those crimes 
which would seem most likely to baffle all attempt at prediction. 
The same regularity occurs in the sentences passed on criminals : 
in France, in every hundred trials there were sixty-one convic- 
tions regularly, year after year. 

Porgetfulness, as well as free-will, is under constant laws : the 
number of undirected letters put into the post-office in London 
and in Paris is very nearly the same year after year respectively — . 
in London they amount to 2000: so that even the deviations from 
free-will proves the generahty and the constancy of the laws that 
govern us. 

Scientific discoveries and social combinations, which put in 
practice great social principles, are not without a decided influ- 
ence ; but these causes of action coming from man, are placed out 
of the sphere of the free-will of each: so that individual impulse 
has less to do with the progress of mankind than is generally 
believed. When society has arrived at a certain point of advance- 
ment, certain discoveries will naturally be made ; the general 
mind is directed that way, and if one individual does not hit upon 
the discovery, another will. Therefore, on the disputes and dis- 
cussions of different nations for the honour of particular inventions 
or discoveries, as for example the steam-engine, a narrow view of 
the subject is taken ; they properly belong to the age in which 
they are made, without derogating from the merits of those bene- 
factors of mankind who have lessened his toil or increased his 
comfort by the efforts of their genius. The time had come for 
the invention of printing, and printing was invented ; and the 
same observation is applicable to many objects in the physical, as 



456 



PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



well as to the moral world. In the present disturbed state of 
society the time is come for the termination of the feudal system, 
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CIVILIZED EMIGRATION. 457 

Though each individual is accountable to God for his conduct, 
it is evident that the great laws which regulate mankind are alto- 
gether independent of his will, and that liberty of action is per- 
fectly compatible with the general design of Providence. "A 
more profound study of the social system will have the effect of 
limiting more and more the sphere in which man's free-will is 
exercised, for the Supreme Being could not grant him a power 
which tends to overthrow the laws impressed on all the parts of 
creation : He has traced its limits, as He has fixed those of the 
ocean." 

Man is eminently sociable ; he wiHingly gives up part of his 
free-will to become a member of a social body ; and it is this por- 
tion of the individuality of each member of that body, taken in the 
aggregate, which becomes the directrice of the principal social 
movements of a nation. It may be greater or less, good or bad, 
but it determines the customs, wants, and the national spirit of a 
people ; it regulates the sum of their moral statistics ; and it is in 
that manner that the cultivation or savageness, the virtues or the 
vices, of individuals have their influence. It is thus that private 
morality becomes the base of pubhc morality. 

The more man advances in civilization the greater will be his 
collective influence, for knowlege is power ; and at no time did 
the mental superiority of the cultivated races produce such 
changes as they do at present, because they have extended their 
influence to the uttermost parts of the earth by emigration, colo- 
nization, and commerce. In civilized society the number of 
people in the course of time exceeds the means of sustenance, 
which compels some to emigrate ; others are induced by a spirit 
of enterprise to go to new countries, some for the love of gain, 
others to fly from oppression. 

The discovery of the New World opened a wide field for emi- 
gration. Spain and Portugal, the first to avail themselves of it, 
acquired dominion over some of the finest parts of South America, 
which they have maintained till lately a change of times has 
rendered their colonies independent states. Liberal opinions have 
spread into the interior of that continent, in proportion to the 
facility of communication with the cities on the coasts, from 
whence European ides are disseminated. Of this Venezuela and 
Chile are instances, where civilization and prosperity have advanced 
more rapidly than in the interior parts of South America, where 
the Andes are higher and the distance from the sea greater. 
Civilization has been impeded in many of the smaller states by 
war, and those broils inevitable among people unaccustomed to 
free institutions. Brazil would have been further advanced but 
for slavery, that stain on the human race, which corrupts the 
master as much as it debases the slave. 
39 



458 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

Some of the native South American tribes have spontaneously 
made considerably progress in civilization in modern times ; 
others have benefited by the Spanish and Portuguese colonists ; 
and many have been brought into subjection by the Jesuits, who 
have instructed them in some of the arts of social life. But these 
Indians are not more religious than their neighbours, and, from 
the restraint to which they have been subject, have lost vigour of 
character without improving in intellect ; so that now they are 
either stationary or retrogade. Extensive regions are still the 
abode of men in the lowest state of barbarism : some of the tribes 
inhabiting the silvas of the Orinoco, Amazons, and Uruguay are 
cannibals. 

The arrival of the colonists in North America sealed the fate 
of the red men. The inhabitants of the Union, too late awakened 
to the just claims of the ancient proprietors of the land, have 
recently, but vainly, attempted to save the remnant. The white 
man, like an irresistible torrent, has already reached the centre of 
the continent ; and the native tribes now retreat towards the far 
west, and will continue to retreat, till the Pacific Ocean arrests 
them, and the animals on their hunting-grounds are extermi- 
nated. The almost universal dislike the Indian has shown for 
the arts of peace has been one of the principal causes of his 
decline, although the Cherokee tribe, which has lately migrated 
to, the west of the Mississippi, is a remarkable exception ; the 
greater number of them are industrious planters or mechanics ; 
they have a repubhcan government, and publish a newspaper 
in their ow^n language, in a character lately invented by one of 
that nation. 

No part of the world has been the scene of greater iniquity 
than the West Indian islands — and that perpetrated by the 
most enlightened nations of Europe. The native race has 
long been swept away by the stranger, and a new people, 
cruelly torn from their homes, have been made the slaves of 
hard task-masters. If the odious participation in this guilt has 
been a stain on the British name, the abolition of slavery by the 
universal acclamation of the nation will ever form one of the 
brightest pages in their history, so full of glory : nor will it be 
the less so, that justice was combined with mercy, by themiUions 
of money granted to indemnify the proprietors. It is deeply to be 
lamented that our brethren on the other side of the Atlantic have 
not followed the example of their fatherland; but in limited 
monarchies the voice of the people is listened to, while repub- 
lican governments are more apt to become its slave. The 
Northern States have nobly declared every man free who sets his 
foot on their territory'— and the time will come when the Southern 
States will sacrifice interest to justice and mercy. 



COLONIZATION. 459 

It seems to be the design of Providence to supplant the savage 
by civilized man in the continent of Australia as well as in North 
America, though every effort has been made to prevent the 
extinction of the natives. Most of the tribes in that continent 
are as low in the scale of mankind as the cannibal Fuegians, 
whom Captain Fitzroy so generously, but so ineffectually, at- 
tempted to reclaim. Some of the New Hollanders are faithful 
servants for a time, but they almost always find the restraint of 
civiHzed life irksome, and return to their former habits, though 
truly miserable in a country where the means of existence are so 
scanty. Animals and birds are very scarce, and there is no fruit 
or vegetable for the sustenance of man. 

Slavery has been a greater impediment to the improvement of 
Africa than even the physical disadvantages of the country — 
the great arid deserts and unwholesome coasts. A spontaneous 
civihzation has arisen in various parts of Southern and Central 
Africa, in which there has been considerable progress in agricul- 
ture and commerce ; but civilized man has been a scourge on the 
Atlantic coast, which has extended its baneful influence into the 
heart of the continent, by the encouragement it has given to warfare 
among the natives for the capture of slaves, and for the introduction 
of European vices, unredeemed by Christian virtues. Now that 
France and England have united in the suppression of this odious 
traffic, some hopes may be entertained that their colonies may be 
beneficial to the natives, and that other nations may follow their 
example, in which, however, they have been anticipated by three 
Mahommedan sovereigns ; the Sultan has abolished the slave 
market in Constantinople, Ibrahim Pasha on his return from 
France and England gave freedom to his bondsmen in Egypt, 
and the Bey of Tunis has abolished slavery in his dominions. 

The French are zealous in improving the people in Algiers, 
but the constant warfare in which they have been embroiled ever 
since their conquest must render their success in civilizing the 
natives at least remote. The inhabitants of those extensive and 
magnificent countries in the eastern seas that have long been 
colonized by the Dutch have made but little progress under their 
rule. 

The British colony at the Cape of Good Hope has had con- 
siderable influence on the neighbouring rude nations, who now 
begin to adopt more civilized habits. When Mr. Somerville 
visited Litako, the natives for the first time saw a white person 
and a horse, and were scantily clothed with skins. When Dr. 
Smith visited them 20 years afterwards, he found the chief men 
mounted on horseback, wearing hats made of rushes, and an 
attempt made to imitate European dress. 

Colonization has nowhere produced such happy results as 



460 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

among the amiable and cultivated inhabitants of India, who are 
sensible of the benefits they derive from the impartial adminis- 
tration of just and equal laws, the foundation of schools and col- 
leges, and the wide extension of commerce. 

All the causes of emigration have operated by turns on the 
inhabitants of Britain, and various circumstances have concurred 
to make their colonies permanent. In North America, that which 
not many years ago was a British colony has become a great 
independent nation, occupying a large portion of the continent. 
The Australian continent and New Zealand will in after ages be 
peopled by a British race, and will become centres of civilization 
which will spread its influence to the uttermost islands of the 
Pacific. These splendid islands, possessing every advantage of 
climate and soil, with a population in many parts far advanced in 
the arts of civilized Hfe, industry, and commerce, though in others 
savage, will in time come in for a share of the general improve- 
ment. The success that has attended the noble and unaided 
efforts of Sir J. Brooke in Borneo, shows how much the influ- 
ence of an active and benevolent mind can in a short time 
effect. 

The colonies on the continent of India are already centres from 
which the culture of Europe is spreading over the East. 

Commerce has not less influence on mankind than colonization, 
with which it is intimately connected ; and the narrow limits of 
the British Islands have rendered it necessary for its inhabitants 
to exert their industry. The riches of our mines in coal and 
metals, which produce a yearly income of 24,000,000/. sterling, 
is a principal cause of our manufacturing and commercial wealth ; 
but even with these natural advantages, more is due not only to 
our talents and enterprise, but to our high character for faith and 
honour. 

Every country has its own peculiar productions, and by an 
unrestrained interchange of the gifts of Providence the condition 
of all is improved. The exclusive jealousy with which com- 
merce has hitherto been fettered, shows the length of time that 
is necessary to wear out the effects of those selfish passions which 
separated nations when they were yet barbarous. It required a 
high degree of cultivation to break down those barriers conse- 
crated by their antiquity ; and the accomplishment of this 
important change evinces the rate at which the present age is 
advancing. 

A new era in the history of the world began when China was 
opened to European intercourse ; but many years must pass 
before European influence can penetrate that vast empire, and 
eradicate those illiberal prejudices by which it has so long been 
governed. 



IMPROVED INTERCOURSE. 461 

Two important triumphs yet remain to be achieved over phy- 
sical difficulties by the science and energy of man, namely, the 
junction of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans at the Isthmus of 
Central America, and the union of the Red Sea with the Mediter- 
ranean at that of Suez. The first seems to be on the eve of 
accomplishment, and, in conjunction with the treasures with, 
which the auriferous district of California is said to abound, may 
bring about a complete revolution in the tide of affairs ; and that 
country, hitherto so completely separated from the rest of the 
world and so little known, will become a new centre of civiliza- 
tion, whose influence will be diffused over the wide Pacific to the. 
shores of the eastern continent ; the expectation of Columbus will 
then be reahzed — of a passage to the East Indies by the Atlantic. 
Should the Mediterranean and Red Sea be united by a water 
communication, Alexandria, Venice, and the other maritime cities 
of southern Europe may regain, at least in part, the mercantile 
position which they lost by the discovery of Vasco da Gama.^^ 

The advantages of colonization and commerce to the less civil- 
ized part of the world are incalculable, as well as to those at home, 
not only by furnishing an exchange for manufactures, important 
as this is, but by the immense accession of knowledge of the earth 
and its inhabitants, that has been thus attained. 

The history of former ages exhibits nothing to be compared 
with the mental activity of the present. Steam, which annihilates 
time and space, fills mankind with schemes for advantage or de- 
fence : but however mercenary the motives for enterprise may 
be, it is instrumental in bringing nations together. The facility 
of communication is rapidly assimilating national character. So- 
ciety in most of the capitals is formed on the same model ; and as 
the study of modern languages is now considered a part of polite 
education, and every well-educated person speaks more than one 
modern tongue, one of the great barriers to the assimilation of 
character amongst nations will be removed. 

^^ It is singular that the British should; for years, have possessed such 
extensive territories in Asia without having explored their mineral 
wealth. Perhaps the quantity of gold recently discovered in California 
and Africa may call the attention of the East India Company to the 
subject. Some of the richest mining districts are in countries where 
primary formations have been crossed or disturbed by volcanic action; 
and as that is eminently the case along the eastern coast of the Bay of 
Bengal, from Aracan to the peninsula of Malacca, mines of the precious 
metals will most likely be lound on that frontier, possibly in Siam and 
the Birraan empire. The interior of the Deccan has also been greatly 
disturbed by ancient volcanos ; and as that country is said to bear a 
strong analogy in structure to South Africa, it may also resemble it in 
the production of gold. The auriferous territory in California appears 
to be at least 400 miles long and 100 broad. 
39* 



462 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

Science has never been so extensively and so successfully cul- 
tivated as at the present time : the collective wisdom and experi- 
ence of Europe and the United States of America is now brought 
to bear on subjects of the highest importance in annual meetings, 
where the common pursuit of truth is as beneficial to the moral as 
to the intellectual character, and the noble objects of investigation 
are no longer confined to a philosophic few, but are becoming 
widely diffused among all ranks of society, and the most enhght- 
ened governments have given their support to measures that 
could not have been otherwise accomplished.^^ Simukaneous 



^ In bringing to a close a work which may in some measure be con- 
sidered a kind of Resume of Natural knowledge, it may not be either 
out of place or irrelevant to our subject to allude more particularly to 
the encouragement of late years granted to scientific investigation by 
our own Government. 

It must be confessed that Great Britain for a long time remained 
behind the nations of the continent in fostering scientific enterprise 
and research; and if England has rivalled in most branches of natural 
knowledge, and surpassed in some, every other people, it has arisen 
more from individual exertion, and that spirit of association which forms 
so happy a characteristic of our race, and which has in our political 
institutions so mainly contributed to our national greatness and pros- 
perity, tlian from any direct encouragement from our rulers. Whilst 
France and other continental nations were endowing the votaries of 
science, w^ere lavishing money on scientific expeditions, and founding 
institutions which will hand down the names of their sovereigns to pos- 
terity as the benefactors of mankind, England had done little in the 
same track beyond fitting out those memorable expeditions of Cook, 
and, subsequently, those of Vancouver and Flinders, and the support 
granted to our great national Observatory, which, under the direction of 
Bradley, Maskelyne, Pond, and Airy, has attained a degree of celebrity 
and utility unequalled by any astronomical foundation in aacient or 
modern times. 

The conclusion of a long war, in opening the scientific repositories of 
the continent to our countrymen, showed us how much our great insti- 
tutions, with the above solitary exception, were behindhand, not only 
in extent and utility, but in the liberality with which they were conducted. 
Possessing as we did the most ample means, from our immense colo- 
nial possessions and our widely-extended commerce, to add to the stock 
of our knowledge in natural history, our collections were infinitely behind 
those of the great states of the continent, and scarcely on a par with those 
of the sovereigns of a second and even third rate importance. A better 
system was loudly called for, and a better system has been adopted. Our 
great national collection of the British Museum — and I here refer more 
particularly to its scientific and antiquarian department, for there is still 
much room for improvement in the literary — has in a few years, thanks 
to the liberahty of Parliament and the exertions of its trustees and offi- 
cers, become equal in every respect, and superior in many, to any simi- 
lar institution on the continent. Two establishments have been created 



ADVANCE OF SCIENCE. 463 

observations are made at numerous places in both hemispheres on 
electricity, magnetism, on the tides and currents of the air and 
the ocean, and those mysterious vicissitudes of temperature and 

within the last dozen of years which reflect the greatest honour on the 
statesmen, Sir F. Baring, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the 
late Earl of Besborough, as chief Commissioner of the Woods and Forests, 
who fostered them in their infancy, and on the talented individuals who 
had been selected to carry out the enlightened views of the Government 
— ^the Museum of Practical Geology, a designation that conveys a very 
inadequate idea of the extent of its attributes or of its utility, and the 
Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. To the first the public is already in- 
<:.ebted for such a geological survey and map of the empire as never had 
been planned or executed in any other country — only a small instalment^ 
however, of great services which the nation and geological science are 
likely to derive from the labours of Sir H. Delabeche and his collabo- 
rators. The Royal Gardens at Kew, under the direction of Sir W.'J. 
Hooker, lose nothing when compared with the most celebrated estab- 
lishments of the kind, ancient or modern: never was public money 
better bestowed, or in a way to convey more useful instruction and 
gratification to the great mass of the community. Whilst every German 
university had its Museum of Comparative Anatomy, when the govern- 
ment of revolutionary France had placed at the disposal of Cuvier ample 
means to lay the basis of that science of which he was to be considered 
the founder, an eminent surgeon, John Hunter, animated by the love of 
science alone, and unaided by his Government, was rendering a similar 
service to Great Britain, in laying the foundation of that Museum which 
so justly bears his honoured name. Thanks to the liberality of the 
Government, and to the well-judged appreciation of the Royal College 
of Surgeons, the Hunterian Collection has become the property of the 
nation, and has received such additions and ameliorations as not to be 
behind any of those of the continent; whilst in point of arrangement, 
facilities granted for study, and real practical utility, it infinitely sur- 
passes them all. To it we principally are indebted for the introduction 
of the study of comparative anatomy into this country, and for the pos- 
session of one of its greatest modern expositors. Professor Owen. 

It may appear invidious, at a time when every department of our 
Government is showing itself so desirous of promoting the cause of 
science, to point to any in particular: still we cannot refrain from making 
special mention of one to which science in general, and more particu- 
larly that branch of it which forms the principal object of this work, and 
our best national interests, owe a deep and lasting debt of gratitude — 
the Hydrographic department of the Admiralty; which, under its pre- 
sent able chief, Sir Francis Beaufort, has attained a degree of eminence 
unequalled by that of any other maritime country. The Admiralty has 
profited of a long peace to extend our knowledge over almost every 
region of the globe, conferring thereby an immense service on geogra- 
phical science, and placing in the hands of our national and commercial 
marine a collection of charts and nautical instructions unparalleled in 
the history of navigation for their extent and exactitude. Another branch 
of inquiry, closely connected with Hydrography and Navigation, which 



464 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

moisture, which bless the labours of the husbandman one year, 
and blight them in another. 

The places of the nebulae and fixed stars, and their motions, are 

it required the encouragement of a government to institute, the investi- 
gation of the laws of terrestrial magnetism and meteorology, has been 
very liberally provided for by Parliament, and most ably carried out, 
under the direction of Colonel Sabine, by the establishment of special 
observatories in our widely extended colonies, and by the publication 
and distribution of their results. 

The several maritime expeditions undertaken since the peace in a 
purely scientific view reflect the highest credit on the departments of 
the Government with which they have originated, as they do on the 
eminent individuals, many of whom still live to enjoy their well-merited 
fame, who have carried out their country's wishes. The names of Parry, 
Franklin, Back, James C. Ross, and Richardson, will be preserved in the 
memory of posterity long after the ephemeral glory of their professional 
career will have been forgotten. 

AUhough it is to the projectors of such an altered state of things, and 
to the statesmen who CDCOuraged and brought it about, that our first 
acknowledgement is due, our thanks must be also expressed to that 
branch of the legislature which, holding, as it rightly does, the public 
purse, has so liberally come forward upon every occasion, w^hen soli- 
cited, in granting the means to promote scientific enterprise. The votary 
of science therefore owes to the House of Commons the expression of 
his unmingled gratitude. 

But, in paying that just tribute to the ministers of the Crown and to 
Parliament, we must not pass over in silence the encouragement which 
science has in every department met with from the East India Company. 
Lords of an immense territory, the Court of Directors, and its represen- 
tatives in India, have always shown themselves ready to contribute in 
a most liberal spirit to the extension of our knowledge of their widely 
extended empire. The trigonometrical surveys of India, the estabhsh- 
ment of observatories, the endowment of colleges and of scientific socie- 
ties, the formation of collections of natural history at great expense, 
and which it distributes to all those who are likely to make good use of 
them, the publication of works on physical researches, on natural his- 
tory, of astronomical observations, bestowed with so liberal a hand to 
men of science, the formation of such a map of its extended dominions 
and of charts of its coasts as would do honour to any government, must 
place the East India Company in the first rank of those mighty poten- 
tates of the earth to whom science will both now and in after ages feel 
placed under the most lasting obligations. 

Connected with our Oriental empire, it is due to some of the native 
sovereigns of India to state that they have not been behindhand in imi- 
tating the liberal example of their powerful protectors. Two native 
princes, the Rajah of Travancore and the King of Oude, have at very 
great expense established astronomical observatories in their territories, 
luniished with European instruments of the most delicate construction, 
and placed under the direction of European officers amply endowed and 
provided for. The peninsula of India at the present moment possesses 



ADVANCE OF SCIENCE. 465 

known with unexampled precision, and the most refined analyses 
embrace the most varied objects. Three new satellites and six 
new planets have been discovered within four years, and one of 
these under circumstances the most unprecedented. In the far 
heavens, from disturbances in the motions of Uranus which could 
not be accounted for, an unknown and unseen body was declared 
to be revolving on the utmost verge of the solar system ; and it 
was found in the very region of the heavens pointed out by ana- 
lysis. On earth, though hundreds of miles apart, that invisible 
messenger, electricity, instantaneously conveys the thoughts of 
the invisible spirit of man to man — results of science sublimely 
transcendental. 

Vain would be the attempt to enumerate the improvements in 
machinery and mechanics, the canals and railroads that have been 
made, the harbours that have been improved, the land that has 
been drained, the bridges that have been constructed ; and now, 
although Britain is inferior to none in many things, and superior 
to all in some, one of our most distinguished engineers declares 
that we are scarcely beyond the threshold in improvement ; to 
stand still is to retrograde, human ingenuity will always keep 
pace with the unforeseen, the increasing wants of the age.^^ 
" Who knows what may yet be in store for our use ; what new 
discovery may again change the tide of human affairs; what 
hidden treasures may yet be brought to light in the air or in the 
ocean, of which we know so little ; or what virtues there may be 
in the herbs of the field, and in the treasures of the earth — how far 
its hidden fires, or stores of ice, may yet become available — ages 
can never exhaust the treasures of nature or the talent of man."^* 
It would be difficult to follow the rapid course of discovery through 
the complicated mazes of magnetism and electricity ; the action of 
the electric current on the polarized sun-beam, one of the most 
beautiful of modern discoveries, leading to relations hitherto un- 
suspected between that power and the complex assemblage of 
visible and invisible influences on solar light, by one of which 
nature has recently been made to paint her own likeness. It is 
impossible to convey an idea of the rapid succession of the varied 
and curious results of chemistry, and its application to physiology 
and agriculture ; moreover, distinguished works have lately been 
published at home and abroad on the science of mind, which has 
been so successfully cultivated in our own country. Geography 

four astronomical observatories little behind those of Europe as regards 
the means of observation ; until very lately there did not exist one public 
observatory in the whole extent of the United States of America. 
[A national observatory was established at Washington in the year 

^ Sir John Rennie. »* Charles Babbage, Esq. 



460 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

has assumed a new character, by that unwearied search for accu- 
rate knowledge and truth that marks the present age, and physi- 
cal geography is altogether a new science. 

The spirit of nautical and geographical discovery, begun in the 
15th century, by those illustrious navigators who had a new world 
to discover, is at this day as energetic as ever, though the results 
are less briUiant. Neither the long gloomy night of a polar 
winter, nor the dangers of the ice and the storm, deter our gallant 
seamen from seeking a better acquaintance with "this ball of 
earth," even under its most frowning aspect ; and that, for honour, 
which they are as eager to seek even in the cannon's mouth. 
Nor have other nations of Europe and America been without their 
share in these bold adventures. The scorching sun and deadly 
swamps of the tropics as little prevent the traveller from collecting 
the animals and plants of the present creation, or the geologist 
from investigating those of ages long gone by. Man daily indicates 
his birthright as lord of the creation, and compels every land and 
sea to contribute to his knowledge. 

The most distinguished modern travellers, following the noble 
example of Baron Humboldt, the patriarch of physical geography, 
take a more extended view of the subject than the earth and its 
animal and vegetable inhabitants afford, and include in their 
researches the past and present condition of man, the origin, man- 
ners, and languages of existing nations, and the monuments of 
those that have been. Geography has had its dark ages, during 
which the situation of many great cities and spots of celebrity in 
sacred and profane history had been entirely lost sight of, which 
are now discovered by the learning and assiduity of the modern 
traveller. Of this, Italy, Egypt, the Holy Land, Asia Minor, 
Arabia, and the valleys of the Euphrates and Tigris, with the 
adjacent mountains of Persia, are remarkable instances, not to 
mention the vast region of the East, and the remote centres of 
aboriginal civihzation in the New World. The interesting dis- 
coveries of Mr. Layard, who possessed every acquirement that 
could render a traveller competent to accomplish so arduous 
an undertaking, have brought to light the long-hidden treasures 
of the ancient Ninevah, where its own peculiar style of art had 
existed anterior to that of Egypt.^^ In many parts of the world 
the ruins of cities of extraordinary magnitude and architecture 
show that there are wide regions of whose original inhabitants we 
know nothing. The Andes of Peru and Mexico have remains of 
civilized nations before the age of the Incas. Mr. Pentland has 

^5 We learn, on closing the present volume, that this distinguished 
traveller, through the liberality of Her Majesty's Government, is again 
about to proceed to the former field of his exertions. 



ANTIQUARIAN RESEARCH. 467 

found numerous remains of Peruvian monuments in every part of 
the great valley of the Peru-Bolivian Andes, and many parts of 
the imperial capital Cusco, little changed from what they were at 
the downfall of Atahualpa. Mr. Stephens has found in the woods 
of Central America the ruins of great cities, adorned with sculp- 
ture and pictorial writings, vestiges of a people far advanced, who 
had once cultivated the soil where these entangled forests now 
grow Picture-writings have been discovered by Sir Robert 
Schomburgk on rocks in Guiana, spread over an extent of 350,000 
square miles, similar to those found in the United States and in 
Siberia. Magnificent buildings still exist in good preservation all 
over eastern Asia, and many in a ruinous state belong to a period 
far beyond written record. 

Ancient literature has furnished a subject of still more interest- 
ing research, from which it is evident that the mind of man is 
essentially the same under very different circumstances ; every 
nation far advanced in civihzation has had its age of poetry, the 
drama, romance, and philosophy, each stamped with the character 
of the people and times, and still more with their religious behef. 
Our profound Oriental scholars have made known to Europeans 
the refined Sanscrit hterature of Hindostan, its schools of philoso- 
phy and astronomy, its dramatic writings and poetry, which are 
original and beautiful, and to these the learned in Greece and Italy 
have contributed. 

The riches of Chinese literature, and their valuable geography, 
were introduced into Europe by the French Jesuits of the last cen- 
tury, and followed up with success by the French and English 
philosophers of the present : to France we also owe much of our 
knowledge of the poetry and letters of Persia ; and from the time 
that Dr. Young deciphered the inscriptions on the Rosetta Stone, 
Egyptian hieroglyphics and picture-writing have been studied by 
the learned of France, England, and Italy, and we have reason to 
expect much new information from the more recent researches ot 
Professor Lepsius of Berhn. The Germans, indeed, have left few 
subjects of ancient literature unexplored, even to the language 
written at Babylon and Nineveh — the most successful attempt to 
decipher which is due to a distinguished countryman of our own, 
Colonel Rawlinson. 

The press has overflowed with an unprecedented quantity of 
literature, some of standard merit, and much more that is ephe- 
meral, suited to all ranks, on every subject, with the aim, in our 
own country at least, to improve the people, and to advocate the 
cause of morality and virtue. All this mental energy is but an 
efTect of those laws which regulate human affairs, and include in 
their generality the various changes that tend to improve the con- 
dition of man. 



468 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

The fine arts do not keep pace with science, though they hare 
not been altogether left behind. Painting, like poetry, must come 
spontaneously, because a feeling for it depends upon innate sym- 
pathies in the human breast. Nothing external could affect us, 
■unlesws there were corresponding ideas within; poetically consti- 
tuted minds of the highest organization are most deeply impressed 
with whatever is excellent. All are not gifted with a strong per- 
ception of the beautiful, in the same way as some persons cannot 
see certain colours, or hear certain sounds. Those elevated senti- 
ments which constitute genius are given to few ; yet something 
akin, though inferior in degree, exists in most men. Consequently, 
though culture may not inspire genius, it cherishes and calls forth 
the natural perception of what is good and beautiful, and by that 
means improves the tone of the national mind, and forms a counter- 
poise to the all-absorbing useful and commercial. 

Historical painting is successfully cultivated both in France and 
Germany. The Germans have modelled their school on the true 
style of the ancient masters. They have become their rivals in 
richness and beauty of colouring, and are not surpassed in vivid- 
ness of imagination, nor in variety and sublimity of composition, 
which is poetry of the highest order embodied. Sculpture and 
architecture are also marked by that elevated and pure taste which 
distinguish their other works of art.^^ French artists, following 
in the same steps, have produced historical works of great merit. 
Pictures of genre and scenes of domestic life have been painted 
with much expression and beauty by our own artists; and British 
landscapes, like some painted bj^^ German artists, are not mere por- 
traits of nature, but pictures of high poetical feeling, and the excel- 
lence of their composition has been acknowledged all over Europe, 
by the popularity of the engravings which illustrate many of our 
modern books. The encouragement given to this branch of art at 
home may be ascribed to the taste for a country life so general in 
England. Water-colour painting, which is entirely of British 
growth, has now become a favourite style in every country, and 
is brought to the highest perfection in our own. 

The Itahans have had the merit of restoring sculpture to the 
pure style which it had lost, and that gifted people have produced 
some of the noblest specimens of modern art. The greatest genius 
of his time left the snows of the far North to spend his days in 

*^ The works of Cornehus and Kaulbach bear testimony to the justice 
of the observations in the text. In drawing, nothing can be more beau- 
tiful — in composition, nothing can be more varied or sublime. The 
'^Destruction of Jerusalem," by Kaulbach, in which a powerful genius 
has combined the truth of the historian with the imagination of the poet, 
and executed with the hand of a master, might bear comparison even 
with the Italian school for colouring. 



MUSIC AND POETRY. 469 

Rome, the head-quarters of art; and our own sculptors of eminent 
talents have established themselves in Rome, where they find a 
more congenial spirit than in their own country, in which the com- 
positions of Flaxman were not appreciated till they had become 
the admiration of Europe. Munich can boast of some of the finest 
specimens of modern sculpture and architecture. 

The Opera, one of the most refined of theatrical amusements in 
every capital city in Europe, displays the excellence and power 
of Italian melody, which has been transmitted from age to age by 
a succession of great composers. German music, partaking of the 
learned character of the nation, is rich in original harmony, which 
requires a cultivated taste to understand and appreciate. 

Italy is the only country that has had two poetical eras of the 
highest order; and, great as the Latin period was, that of Dante 
Avas more original and sublime. The Germans, so eminent in 
every branch of hterature, have also been great as poets ; the 
power of Goethe's genius will render his poems as permanent as 
the language in which they are written. France is, as it long has 
been, the abode of the Comic Muse; and although that nation can 
claim great poets of a more serious cast, yet the language and the 
habits of the people are more suited to the gay than the grave style. 
Though the British may have been inferior to other nations in 
some branches of the fine arts, yet poetry, immeasurably the 
greatest and most noble, redeems, and more than redeems us. 
The nation that produced the poetry of Chaucer, Spenser, Shake- 
speare and Milton, with all the brilliant train, down nearly to the 
present time, must ever hold a distinguished place, as an imagina- 
tive people. Shakespeare alone would stamp a language with 
immortality. The British novels stand high among works of imagi- 
nation, and they have generally had the merit of advancing the 
cause of morality. Had French novelists attended more to this, 
their knowledge of the human heart and the brilliancy of their 
composition would have been more appreciated. 

Poetry of the highest stamp has fled before the utilitarian spirit 
of the age ; yet there is as much talent in the world, and imagina- 
tion too, at the present time, as at any former period, though 
directed to different and more important objects, because the whole 
aspect of the moral world is altered. The period is come for one 
of those important changes in the minds of men which occur from 
time to time, and form great epochs in the history of the human 
race. The whole of civilized Europe could not have been roused 
to the enthusiasm which led them to embark in the Crusades by 
the preaching of Peter the Hermit, unless the people had been 
prepared for it: men were ready for the Reformation before the 
impulse was given by Luther ; and Pius IX. merely applied the 
40 



470 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

match to a train already laid. These are the barometric storms of 
the human mind. 

The present state of transition has been imperceptibly in pro- 
gress, aided by many concurring circumstances, among which 
the increasing intelligence of the lower orders, and steam-travel- 
ling, have been the most efficient. The latter has assisted emi- 
nently in the diffusion of knowledge, and has probably accelerated 
the crisis of pubhc affairs on the Continent, by giving the inhab- 
itants of different countries opportunities of intercourse, and com-, 
paring their conditions. No invention that has been made for 
ages has so levelling a tendency, which accords but too well with 
the present disposition of the people. The spirit of emancipa- 
tion, so peculiarly characteristic of this century, appears in all 
the relations of life, political and social. On the continent of 
Europe it has shaken the whole fabric of society, subverted law 
and order, and ruined thousands, in order to throw down the 
crumbling remains of the feudal system. The same emanci- 
pating spirit which has thrown young and old into a state of 
insubordination and rebellion abroad, has been quietly but gradu- 
ally altering the relations of social and domestic life at home. 
Parent and child no longer stand in the same relation to one 
another ; even at an early age boys assume the character and 
independence of men, which may perhaps fit them sooner for 
taking their share in the affairs of the world; for it must be 
acknowledged that, whether from early independence or some 
other cause, no country has produced more youthful and able 
statesmen than our own ; but, at the same time, it places them 
on a less amicable and more dangerous position, by depriving 
them of the advice and experience of the aged, to which the 
same deference is no longer paid. The working man considers 
his interest to be at variance^ with that of the manufacturer, and 
the attachment of servants to their masters is nearly as extinct in 
Britain as vassalage. Ambition, to a great extent, pervades the 
inferior and middle grades of society, and so few are satisfied 
with the condition in which they were born, that the pressure 
upwards is enormous. The numerous instances of men rising 
from an inferior rank to the highest offices in the State encourages 
the endeavour to rise in society, which is right and natural, if 
pursued by legitimate means, but the levelling disposition so 
prevalent abroad is pernicious as it is impracticable. So long as 
men are endowed with different dispositions and different talents, 
so long will they differ in condition and fortune, and this is as 
strongly marked in repubhcs as in any other form of govern- 
ment ; for man, with all his attempts to hberate himself from 
nature's ordinances, by the establishment of equal laws and civil 
rights, never can escape from them — inequality of condition is 



INCREASE OF BENEVOLENCE. 471 

permanent as the human race. Hence, from necessity we must 
fulfil the duties of the station in which we are placed, bearing in 
mind that, while Christianity requires the poor to endure their 
lot with patience, it imposes a heavy responsibility on the rich. 

In Britain, respect for the labouring classes, together with 
active benevolence, form the counterpoise to the evil propensi- 
ties of this state of transition ; a benevolence which is not con- 
fined to alms-giving, but which consists in the earnest desire to 
contribute with energy to the sum of human happiness. In pro- 
portion as that disposition is diffused among the higher classes, 
and the more they can convince the lower orders that they have 
an ardent desire to afford them every source of happiness and 
comfort that is in their power, so much sooner will the transient 
evils pass awa-j, and an improved state of things will commence ; 
kindly and confiding feelings will then take the place of coldness 
and mistrust. 

The continual increase of that disinterested benevolence and 
liberal sentiment, which in our own country is the most hopeful 
and consoling feature of the age, manifests itself in the frequency 
with which plans for ameliorating the condition of the lower 
classes are brought before Parliament ; in the societies formed 
for their relief; and in the many institutions established for their 
benefit and comfort. 

Three of the most beneficial systems of modern times are due 
to the benevolence of English ladies — the improvement of prison 
discipline, savings-banks, and banks for lending small sums to the 
poor. The success of all has exceeded every expectation, and 
these admirable institutions are now adopted by several foreign 
countries. The importance of popular and agricultural education 
is becoming an object of attention to the more enlightened govern- 
ments ; and one of the greatest improvements in education is, 
that teachers are now fitted for their duties, by being taught the 
art of teaching. The gentleness with which instruction is con- 
veyed no longer blights the joyous days of youth, but, on the con- 
trary, encourages self-education, which is the most efficient. 

The system of infant-schools, established in many parts of 
Europe and throughout the United States of America, is rapidly 
improving the condition of the people. The instruction given in 
them is suited to the station of the scholars, and the moral lessons 
taught are often reflected back on the uneducated parents by their 
children. Moreover, the personal intercourse with the higher 
orders, and the kindness which the children receive from them» 
strengthen the bond of reciprocal good feeJing. Since the aboli- 
tion of the feudal system, the separation between the higher and 
the lower classes of society has been increasing ; but the generous 
exertions of individuals, whose only object is to do good, is now 
beginning to correct a tendency that, unchecked, might have led 



472 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

to the worst consequences to all ranks. We learn from statistical 
reports that the pains taken by individuals and associations are 
not without their effect upon the character of the nation. For 
example, during the eleven years that proceeded 1846, in which 
the criminal returns indicated the intellectual condition of persons 
accused, there were 31 counties in England and Wales in which 
not one educated woman was called before a court of law, in a 
population of 2,617,653 females.97 

Crime has generally decreased in proportion to the religious and 
moral education of the people : the improvement in the morality 
of the factory-children is immense since Government appointed 
inspectors to superintend their health and education ;^^ and indeed 
the improvement in the condition of the whole population appears 
from the bills of mortality, which unquestionably prove that the 
duration of human life is continually increasing throughout Great 
Britain.99 

The voluntary sacrifices that have been made to relieve the 
necessities of a famishing nation evince the humane disposition 

^ Twenty of these counties were in England and 1 1 in Wales, and 
so few crimes took place among educated women in the other counties 
during the 1 1 years mentioned, that the annual proportion of accusations 
against educated females was only 1 in 1,349,059. During the year 
1846 only 48 educated persons were convicted of crimes out of the whole 
population of England and Wales, and none were sentenced to death. 
And during the years 1845 and 1846 there were 15 counties in England 
and 11 in Wales in which no well-educated person was convicted of 
any crime. The number of accusations among educated persons in 
Scotland is greater, because education is more general, and because the 
quantity of ardent spirits used in Scotland is five times greater than in 
England. Crime is very much below the average in the mining dis- 
tricts, and it is still less frequent in Wales and in the mountainous coun- 
try in the North of England. The accomplishments of a well-educated 
person in these statistical records consist merely in being able to read 
and write fluently. — " London Statistical Journal.'' 

^^ Every factory-child is limited to 48 hours of labour in the week, and 
the children must by law attend school at least two hours a-day for six 
days out of the seven, besides a Sunday-school — one penny being de- 
ducted out of each shilling of wages for education. The inspectors have 
the power of establishing schools where wanted, and of dismissing in- 
competent teachers. The engagement of factory-children in Britain lasts 
till they are 13, in the United States it ends at 15 years of age. — " Sta- 
tisticalJournal." 

^^ The average duration of the life of sovereigns is greater in 
modern than in ancient times, but it is still lower than any other class of 
mankind. The most favourable average for them is 70*05 years; for 
the English aristocracy it is 71-69 • for the English gentry, 74-00; for 
the learned professions, 73-62; for English literary and scientific men 
it is 72-10; for the army and navy, 71-99 ; and for the professions of the 
fine arts, 71-15. — "London Statistical Journal.'' 



PROGRESSIVE CHRISTIANITY. 473 

of the age . But it is not one particlar and extraordinary case, however 
admirable, that marks the general progress — it is not in the earth- 
quake or the storm, but in the still small voice of consolation heard 
in the cabin of the wretched, that is the prominent feature of the 
charities of the present time, when the benevolent of all ranks 
seek for distress in the abodes of poverty and vice, to aid and to 
reform. No language can do justice to the merit of those who 
devote themselves to the reformation of the children who have 
hitherto wandered neglected in the streets of great cities ; in the 
unpromising task they have laboured with patience, undismayed 
hy difficulties that might have discouraged the most determined — 
but they have had their reward, they have succeeded.^"'' The 
language of kindness and sympathy, never before heard by these 
children of crime and wretchedness, is saving multitudes from 
perdition. But it would require a volume to enumerate the ex- 
ertions that are making for the accommodation, health, and im- 
provement of the people, and the devotion of high and low to the 
introduction of new establishments and the amelioration of the old. 
Noble and liberal sentiments mark the proceedings of public assem- 
blies, whether in the cause of nations or of individuals, and the 
severity of our penal laws is mitigated by a milder system. Hap- 
pily this liberal and benevolent spirit is not confined to Britain, 
it is universal in the States of the American Union, and it is 
spreading widely through the more civilized countries of Europe. 
No retrograde movement can now take place in civilization ; 
the diffusion of Christian virtues and of knowledge ensures the 
f)rogressive advancement of man in those high moral and intel- 
lectual qualities that constitute his true dignity. But much yet 
remains to be done at home, especially in rehgious instruction 
and the prevention of crime ; and miUions of our fellow-creatures 
in both hemispheres are still in the lowest grade of barbarism. 
Ages and ages must pass away before they can be civilized ; but 
if there be any analogy between the period of man's duration on 
earth and that of the frailest plant or shell-fish of the geological 
periods, he must still bfe in his infancy ; and let those who doubt 
of his indefinite improvement compare the first revolution in France 
with the last, or the state of Europe in the middle ages with what 
it is at present. For, notwithstanding the disturbed condition of 
the Continent, and the mistaken means the people employ to im- 
prove their position, crime is less frequent and less atrocious than 
it w^as in former times, and the universal indignation it now raises 
is a strong indication of improvement. In our own country, men 

'°° There are 62 Ragged Schools in London, and Government under- 
takes to send annually to the colonies 150 of such of the scholars as 
choose to go. — -'London Statistical Journal." 
40* 



474 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

who seem to have lived before their time were formerly prosecuted 
and punished for opinions which are now sanctioned by the legis- 
lature, and acknowledged by all. The moral disposition of the 
age appears in the refinement of conversation. Selfishness and 
evil passions may possibly ever be found in the human breast, 
but the progress of the race will consist in the increasing power 
of public opinion, the collective voice of mankind regulated by 
the Christian principles of morality and justice. The individuality 
of man modifies his opinions and belief; it is a part of that variety 
which is a universal law of nature ; so that there will probably 
always be a difference of views as to religious doctrine, which, 
however, will become more spiritual, and freer from the taint of 
human infirmity ; but the power of the Christian religion will 
appear in purer conduct, and in the more general practice of 
mutual forbearance, charity, and love. 



APPENDIX. 



Table of the Heights above the Sea of some of the Principal 
Mountain Chains. 

EUROPE. 





Heights 


Countries in 




Names of Places, Mountains, &c. 


in English 


which 


Authorities. 




Feet. 


situated. 




Mont Blanc 


15,739 


Alps, P.* 


P. s.t 


Monte Rosa 


15,210 


'^ L. 


cc 


Mont Cervin 


14,836 


'' P. 


a 


Finsterarhorn 


14,026 


^•' B. 


Eichman. 


Jungfrau 


13,672 


" B. 


a 


Le Geant du M. Blanc . . . 


13,786 


^' P. 


P. s. 


Mont Combin 


14,124 


'^ P. 


a 


Mont Iseran 


13,272 


'^ G. 


Cl 


Monte Viso 


13,599 


'^ C. 


a 


Ortler Spitz 


12;851 


'' R. 


A. S. 


Le Grand Rioburent . . . 


11,063 


'^ M. 


P. S. 


Drey Herrn Spitz .... 


10,122 


<^ Car. 


A. S. 


Mont Tergiou 


9,386 


" J. 


a 


Passes of the Alps: — 








Col du Geant 


11,2381 


^^ P. 


Saussure. 


Col de St. Theodule . . . 


11^185 


'• P. 


P. S. 


Pass of Great St. Bernard . . 


8,173 


" P. 


i( 


" LaFurka .... 


8,714 


" L. 


s. s. 


" Mont Moro .... 


8,937 


" L. 


p. s. 


^^ Le Tavernette . . . 


9,827 


" C. 


u 


<^ Mont Is^ran^ . . . 


9,196 


" G. 


(C 


" Col des Fenetres . . 


9,581 


u p. 


a 


<^ the Stelyio .... 


9,177 


" R. 


A. S. 


" Bernardino .... 


7,015 


'• R. 


(C 



* The letters affixed indicate the parts of the Alps to which each locality belongs— 
M., Maritime; C, Cottian ; G., Grecian ; P., Pennine; L., Lepontine ; B., Bernese, or 
Helvetian ; R., Rhctian ; J., Julian ; Car., Carniac. 

t The authorities on which these heights are given are— the Piedmontese Surveys 
(P. S.), as published in 1845, in the Work entitled " Le Alpi che cingono I'ltalia," 1 vol. 
8vo.; the Austrian Survey (A. S.), as given in the splendid Maps, published by the 
Austrian Government, of the Regno Lombardo-Veneto, in 84 sheets; and the Swiss 
Trigonometrical Survey, by Eichman, 1 vol. 4to., 184G. 

X The first eight passes are only fit for foot-passengers, and in certain seasons for 
mules; the remaining eleven offer carriage-roads, and are generally open at all seasons 
of the year, with the exception of the Slelyio. 



476 



PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



Names of Places, Mountains, &c. 



Heights 

in English 

Feet. 



Countries in 

which 

situated. 



Authorities. 



Pass of the Spiugen . 

" St. Gothard . 

^' Mont Cenis . 

'' Simplon . . 

'^ Tende . . 

'^ Mont Genevre 

'^ Brenner . . 

'^ Pontebba . 

Malahite Peak . . 
Mont Perdu Peak . 
Mabore, Cylinder of 
Maladetta '^ . . 
Vignemale '' . . 
Pic du Midi . . . 
Caniafou .... 



Passes of the Pyrenees :— 

Pass or Port d'Oo . . . 
^' d'Estaube . 

" de Gavarnie . 

^^ de Tourmalet 



Pic de Sancy . . 
Plomb du Cantal 
Mont Mezen . . 
Puy de Dome 
Ballon des Vosges 
Mont Ventoux . 
Mulachagen . . 
Sierra de Gredos . 
Estrella .... 
Siete Picos . . 
Pena Laza . . . 
El Gador . . . 



Monte CornOj or Gran Sasso 

d'ltalia 

Monte Vellino 

Termenillo Grande .... 
Monte Amaro di Majella . . 

Monte Cimone 

Mont Amiata . . . . . . 

St. Oreste or Soracte . . . 

Passes of the Appennines : — 

Pass of Noviordi Giovi . . 1,550 
" LaBochetta. . . | 2,550 

* Heights taken from the list published in the I 
Lougitu'des," converted from metres into English feet, 



6,946 

6,808 
6,772 
6,578 
6,159 
6,119 



11,168 
10,994 
10,899 
10,886 
10,820 
9.540 
9437 



9,843 
8,402 
7,654 



6,093 
5,795 
4,806 
4,688 
6,263 
11,483 
10,552 
7,526 
7,244 
8,222 



9,521 

7,851 
7,212 
9,113 
6,975 
5,794 
2,140 



Alps, R. 
'^ R. 
G. 
L. 
M. 
C. 
R. 
J. 

Pyrenees 

a 

(C 
(C 

cc 
cc 



cc 

cc 
cc 
cc 

France 

Ci 

cc 
cc 



A. S. 
S. S. 

P. s. 



p. s. 

A. S. 
A. S. 

A. B. L.* 

cc 
cc 
cc 
cc 
cc 
cc 



Spain 

cc 

cc 
cc 
cc 


cc 
Bory. 
Franzini. 
Bauza. 

cc 


cc 


Rojas. 


Italy, Apen- 
nines 

cc 

cc 
cc 


M. de Prony. 
Schow. 

cc 


cc 


cc 


Tuscany 
Campagna 
of Rome. 


cc 

cc 


•• 


cc 

cc 


rench "Annuair 


2 du Bureau des 



TABLE OF HEIGHTS. 



477 





Heights 


Countries in 




Names of Places, Monntains, &c. 


in English 


which 


Authorities. 




Feet. 


situated. 




Pass of Pietramala .... 


3,294 


, . 


Schow. 


Islands of the Mediterranean: — 








Monte Rotondo 


8,767 


Corsica 


A. B. L. 


'' d'Oro 


8,701 


li 


a 


" Generargenta . . . 


6,004 


Sardinia 


La Marmora. 


Mount Etna 


10,874 


Sicily 


W.H.Smyth. 


Pizzo di Cane 


6,509 


a 


A. B. L. 


Mount Eryx 


3,894 


a 


ii 


Stromboli ....... 


2,687 


Li pari Isles 


De Borch. 


Greece and Morea: — 








Mount Guiona 


8,538 




Peytier.* 


Parnassus 


8,068 




ii 


Taygetus. Mont St. Elias . . 


7,904 


. . 


a 


Mont Olonas 


7,293 


. , 


ii 


" Kelmos 


7,726 


. , 


a 


'' Athos 


6,778 




De Borch. 


'' Helicon 


5,738 


. . 


Peytier. 


Delphi 


5,725 


. . 


(i 


Mont Hymettus 


3,378 




ii 


Central Europe : — 








E-uska Joy an a 


9.912 


E. Carpaths. 


Malte Brun. 


Budosch; Transylvania . . 


9,593 


u 


A. B. L. 


SuiTul ........ 


9,593 






Mount Tatra, highest point . 


8,524 


W. Carpaths. 


Wahlenberg. 


" Cs^abi Peak. . 


8,314 


ii. 


ii 


'^ Lomnitz . . . 


8,861 


(C 


A. B. L. 


Riesenhoppe, in the Riesenge- 








berge 


5,394 


Germany 


Horen. 


Feldberg, in the Schwarzwald 


4,675 


iC ^ 


French 
Engineers. 


Belchenberg '' '^ 


4,642 


c< 


ii 


Kandelberg " '^ 


4,160 


ii 


Bohnen- 
berger. 


Schneeberg, Geisengebirge . 


4,784 


ii 




Kammkoppel ^' ^' 


4,265 


ii 


Charpentier. 


Sonnenwerbelj in the Erzge- 








birge . 


4,124 


a 




Rachelberg, in the Bohmer- 








wald 


4,561 


a 


Sternberg. 


Steinberg, Moravia .... 


3,511 


a 


David. 


Brocken, Hartz 


3,658 


ii 


Zach. 


Schneeberg, in the Fichtelge- 








birge 


3,461 


ii 


Goldfuss. 



* Heights determined by the French expedition under Captains Peytier and Boblaye, 
and published in the " Coiinai&sante (lesTcnips" for 1831). 



478 



PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



Names of Places, Mountains, &c. 



Heights 

in English 

feet. 



Countries 
which 
situated. 



Authorties. 



Blessbergj in the Thuringer- 
wald 

Glockner '' '' 

Gross Feldberg, in the TauDUs 
chain ........ 

Lowenbergj in the Siebenge- 
birge 

Norway and Siveden : — ■ 

Skagtoltend . Lat. 61° 24' 



Koldetind . 

Sognefield . 

Mugnafield 

Schneehattan 

Pighcettan . 

Sulitelma . 

Langfield . 

Melderskin 

Lyngen Mountains ^^ 69 30 

Great Britain: — > 



Lat. 61° 20 
'^ 62 20 
'^ 62 2 
" 67 5 



61 53 
60 



Ben Nevis 

Cairntoul, Aberdeenshire 
Ben Avon " 

Ben More, Grampians . 
Schehalhen '^ . 

Snowdon 

Cader Idris .... 
Carn Llewellyn ... 
Cross Fell, Cumberland 
Helvyllen, '^ 

Skiddaw, '^ 

Schunner Fell, Yorkshire 
Coniston Fell, Lancashire 
Cheviot Hills . . 
Pentland Hills . 
Curran Tual, Kerry 
Sleib Donnard 
Nephin, Mayo 
Mourne Mountains, Down 
Ben More, Isle of Mull 
Hecla, Isle of S. Uist . 
Cuchullin, Isle of Skye 
Mount Rona .... 



Iceland and Feroe : — 
Sncefials, JokuU . 
Hecla .... 



2,231 



8,101 

7.224 
7^182 
7,215 
8,120 
6,788 
6.178 
6',598 
4,859 



4,380 
4,223 
3,931 
3,819 
3,514 
3; 557 
3,550 
3,471 
3,383 
3,313 
3.038 
2^,388 
2,575 
2,657 
1,878 
3,412 
3,146 
2,644 
2,493 
3,100 
3,002 



,593 



3,324 



Scandinavian 
Mountains 



Skalingefield, Isle Stromoe 



Scotland 

(C 

a 
(I 
cc 

Wales 

cc 
cc 

England 



Scotland 
Ireland 



cc 

Hebrides 

a 

cc 
Shetland 



Iceland 

cc 

Feroe 



Zach. 

cc 

Schmidt. 
Nose. 

Keilhau. 



Hagelstam. 

Forsell. 

Eismark. 

Hagelstam. 

Wahlenberg. 

Hagelstam. 

Von Buch. 



Jameson. 
Playfair. 

cc 

cc 

cc 

Roy. 

Ci 

Jameson. 

cc 

Dr. Young. 
Smith. 

iC 

cc 
Playfair. 
Nimmo. 

M 

Jameson. 

cc 

cc 
Boue. 

M^Culloch. 
Laina;. 



A. B. L. 

cc 



Stein. 



TABLE OF HEIGHTS. 



479 



ASIA. 



Names of Places, Mountains, &c. 



Heights 

in Eiijjlish 

feet. 



Countries in 
. which 
situated. 



Authorities. 



Himalaya Chain:—' 

Kunchingingaj W. part . . 
'' E. Peak . . 

Dwalagari 

Juwahir 

Jumoo 

Jiimnautri 

Dhaibun 

Kabroo 

Chamalari 

Powhunry 

Momonangii, or Gurla . . . 

Api Peak 

Peak No. 12 

'^ 13 

'' 23 

'^ 25 

St. George's Peak . . . . 
St. Patrick's Peak . . . . 
Gungoutri Pyramid . . . , 
Jownlee Peak (highest) . . 
Kailas Peak . . . . . . 

Kohibaba 

Peak N. of Cabul .... 

Passes of the Himalaya: — 

Karokorum Pass 

Parangla Pass 

Kronbrung Pass 

Langpya Dhura or Doora 

Ghaut 

Lipu Lek Pass 

Niti Ghaut Pass 

Paralaha Pass 

Shatool Pass 



Elbrouz . 
Kasbeck 



28,178 
27,826 
26,862 
25,670 
25,312 
25,500 
24,740 
24,005 
23,929 
23,176 
23,500 
22,799 
23,263 
22,313 
22,727 
22,277 
22,500 
22,638 
21,219 
21,940 
21.000 
17^905 
20,232 



18.500 
18^313 

17,750 
16,884 
16,814 
16,500 
15,500 

18,493 



Sikim 

Nepaul 
Kumaoon 
Sikim 
Nepaul 



Col.Waugh.* 

Webb. 
Herbert. 
Waugh. 
Webb. 



Sikim 


Waugh. 


Tibet 


iC 


Sikim 


u^ 


Tibet 


Strachey.t 


Nepaul 


Webb. 


' Between the 


(( 


, Kali and E. 


cc 


' branch of 


cc 


the Ganges. 


cc 


Between 


cc 


V the Ganges 


'' 


) and Sutlej. 


cc 


Kumaoon 


cc 


Tibet 


Strachey. 


Hindoo Cusb 


Burnes. 


u 


a 


Tibet 


Dr.Thomson + 


cc 


Cunningham. 


IC 


Gerard. 


a 


Strachey. 


(C 


Manson. 


cc 


Gerard. 


a 


Webb. 


Cl 


cc 


Caucasus 


Fuss. 


(( 


A. C.$ 



* The heights in the Sikim Himalaya are the results of the observations of Colonel 
Wauuh, Director of the Trigonometrical Survey of India. See " Journal of As. Soc. of 
Bengal," Nov. 1H48. 

t For Lieut. Strachey's observations dming his very interesting journey to the Sacred 
Lakes of Manasarovvar, &c., see " Journal of As. Soc. of Bengal," Aug. J84d. 

t Sec Hooker's " Journal of Botany," May, 1849. 

§ ']'he heights followed by the letters A. C. have been taken from Humboldt's " Asie 
Centrale." 



480 



PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



Names of Places, Mountains, &c. 




Countries in 

which 

situated. 



Authorities. 



Demavend 

Ararat . . . 

Argseus . . . 

Beloukha . . 

Mount Lebanus 
'^ Horeb 
<^ Sinai . 

Jebel Serbal . 

Kamen Peak . 

Tremel Peak . 



17,112 
13,197 
11,062 
9,517 
8,593 
7,498 
6,760 
5,397 
5.071 



Persia 

cc 

Asia Minor 

Altai 

Syria 

iC 

c< 
Ural 



Thomson. 
Parrot. 
A. C. 

a 

A. B. L. 

RUppell. 



AFRICA, AND ISLANDS IN THE ATLANTIC. 



Mount Atlas (Miltsin) . . 
" Abba Jarrat 13° 10' N 
'' Buahat . 13 12 N 

Kilimandjaro . . 4 S 
(doubtful.) 



Table Mountain 



Pico Ruivo 

Peak of Teyde, Teneriffe 
Chahorra, Teneriffe . . 
Pico de Cruz, Palma . . 
Los Pexos, Great Canary . 
Alto Garaona, Gomera 
San Anton, Ferro . . . 
Asses' Ears, Fuestaventura 
Peak of Fogo . . . . . 



Pico, Island of San Antonio 
Pico, Island of Pico . . 
Pico de Vara, Island of St 
MichaePs , 



Caldeira de Sta. Barbara, Ter 



ceira 

Pico de San Joije . 
IVlorro Gordo, Flores 
Caldeira de Corvo . 



11,400 
15,008 
14,362 



3,816 

6,056 
12,172 
9,885 
7,730 
6,400 
4,400 
3,907 
2,770 



8,815 
7,613 

3,570 

3,500 



2,460 



Morocco 
Abyssinia 

cc 

'' in the 
Mtns. of 
the Moon. 
Cape of Good 

Hope. 
Madeira 
Canaries. 
cc 
cc 
cc 
cc 

iC 

Canaries. 
Cape Verde 
Islands. 

cc 

Azores 



Riippell. 

a 

Ans. of Phil. 

A. B. L. 

Vidal. 
Von Buch. 

cc 

Vidal.* 

cc 

(C 

cc 

(C 

Deville. 

Capt. King. 
Vidal. 



* The heights given on Captain Vidal's authority are taken from the elaborate Ad- 
miralty Surveys of Madeira, the Canaries, and Azores, partly executed under his direc- 
tion ; the latter not yet published. 



TABLE OF HEIGHTS. 



481 



AMERICA. 



Names of Places, Mountains, &c. 



Heights 

in English 

Feet. 



Countries in 

wliich 

situated. 



Authorities 



North America : — 

Mount St. Elias 

Popocatepetl 

Orizaba 

Iztacihuatl 

Nevado of Toluca .... 

Sierra Nevada 

Perote Mount 

Fair Weather Mountain . . 

Jorullo 

Volcan de Fuego^ west peak 
^^ " east peak 

IrasUj or Volcano of Cartago 

West Indies: — 



Blue Mountains 
La Souffriere . 
Montague Pelee 
Mount Garon . 

South America : — 



La Sill a de Caraccas . . . 

Cerro de Duida 

Roraima . . Lat. 5° 30' N. 
Mountains of Santa Martha . 

Plains of Bogota 

Volcano of Tolima . . . . 

Volcano of Purace . . . . 

Cumbal 

Cayambe 

Antisana 

Cotopaxi 

Pinchincha 

Chiraborazo 

lliinissa 

Tunguragua 

Sansai 



Vilcanota Mount. 



16.775 
17,717 
17,374 
15,705 
15,542 
15,170 
13,413 
14,925 
4,265 
13,160 
13,050 



5,108 
4,432 



8,600 
8,280 
7,450 
19,000? 
8,730 



17,034 
15,620 
19,535 
19.137 
18', 87 5 
15,924 
21,424 
17,380 
16,424 
16,138 

17,525 



N. America 
Mexico 



N. America 

Mexico 

Guatemala 

a 
a 



Jamaica 
Guadaloupe 
Martinique 
St. Vincent's 



Venezuela 

Guiana 
New Grenada 
(.: 

Andes of 
N. Grenada 



Andes of the 
Equator 

u 

ii 

IC 



Peru 



A B. L. 

Humboldt. 

(C 

A. B. L. 

Humboldt. 



Basil Hall. 
Phys. Atlas. 



Monnier. 
Chisholm. 



Humboldt. 
Schomburgk. 



Humboldt. 



Bousingault. 
Humboldt. 



Bouguer. 
Humboldt. 
La Con- 

damine. 
Pentland.^ 



* The heJEfhts given in this table on Mr. Pcntlanrl's authority have beentaken from his 
Map of "The Laguna of Titicaca, and of the Valleys of Yucay, Collao, and Dcsaguadcro," 
published in 1848. 

41 



482 



PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 





Heights 


Countries in 




Names of Places, Mountains, &c. 


in English 


which 


Authorities. 




Feet. 


situated. 




Apu-Cunuranu , . . . . 


17,590 


Peru 


Pentland 


Guaracoota Peak, Snowline . 


16,297 


(( 


cc 


Cololo .... Lat. 14° 58' 


17,930 


Bolivia 




Volcano of Arequipa . . . 


20,320 


Peru 


Pentland 


Quenuta . . . Lat. 17° 41' 


18,765 




cc 


Chipicani 


19,745 


(C 


cc 


Pomarape 


21,700 


a 


cc 


Parinacota 


22,030 


a 


cc 


Sahama 


22,350 


iC 


cc 


Gualateiri . . Lat. 18° 23' 


21,960 


iC 


cc 


Ancohuma, S. Peak . . . 


21,286 


Bolivian 

Andes 


cc 


<' N. Peak . . . 


21,043 


C( 


u 


Chacliacomani; N. Peak . . 


20,355 


(C 


cc 


Angel Peak . . Lat. 16° 10' 


20,115 


cc 


cc 


Supaiwasi, or Huayna Potosi 


20,260 


cc 


cc 


Cacaca . . . Lat. 16° 25' 


18,210 


(C 


cc 


La Mesada, S. Peak . . . 


19,356 


u 


cc 


Illimani, S. Peak .... 


21,140 


a 


cc 


Mount de las Litanias . . . 


14,500 


iC 


cc 


" Miriquiri Peak Lat. 17° 


16,100 


a 


cc 


Cerro, or Mountain of Potosi 


16,152 


(( 


cc 


''■ of Chorolque, 








near Tupisa 


16,550 


ic 


Redhead. 


Aconcagua Mountain . . . 


23,910 


Chile* 


Fitzroy and 
Beechey 


Tupungato ...... 


15,000 


iC 




Antuco 


16,000 


(( 


Fitzroy 


Villarica . . . . . . . 


16,000 


cc 


iC 


Volcano of OsornOj or Llan- 








quihue 


7,550 


cc 


cc 


Yanteles ...*... 


8,030 


cc 


cc 


Minchinmadava Volcano . . 


8,000 


cc 


cc 


Mount Stokes 


6,400 


Patagonia 


cc 


Mount Burney 


5,800 


cc 


cc 


Mount Sarmiento .... 


6,900 


Tierra del 


cc 




Fuego 1 




Mount Darwin 


6,800 


" . 


cc 



* As staled in the text, vol. i., p. 155. The height here assigned to the Peak of Aconcagua 
differs 700 feet from that given by Captain Fitzroy. A re-calculation, however, of his ele- 
ments has led us to adopt a much greater elevation for the giant of the Chilian Andes than 
given by that talented officer. 

Captain Fitzroy's observations place the summit of the Peak of Aconcagua, which on hia 
chart is incorrectly designated as a volcano, in lat. 32° 38' 30", long. 70° 00' 30" W., or 23' 
23" N., and 100' 45" E. of Valparaiso, or its nearest distance about 88 9-10 geographical 
miles. From a station near Captain Fitzroy's, at Valparaiso, Captain Beechy found the 
angle of elevation of Aconcagua, by several very careful observations, to be lo. 55' 45", the 
distance from this station to the Peak being 88 74 geographical miles. From a discussion of 
all these data, the compiler of this table has deduced for the height of Aconcagua 23,910 feet 
above the sea. 



TABLE OF HEIGHTS. 



483 



Names of Places, Mountains, &c. 


Heights 

in English 

Feet. 


Countries in 

which 

situated. 


Authorities. 


Passes of the Andes : 

Rumiliuasi . . . • r 




16,160 
15,790 
15,340 
15,160 
14,520 
14;750 
15,528 
14,708 
11.502 
12^850 
12,450 
13,210 
14,365 

5,960 

5,830 
5,750 


Peru 

(C 

Bolivia 

(( 

Peru 

a 

Equator 

a 

N. Grenada 

ic 

Chile 

cc 

u 


Gaye. 
Pentland. 


Altos de Toledo . . . 




L 


Pacuani 




a 


Chulluiiquiani 




a 


Vilcanota, or la Raya . 
Gualillas 




cc 

a 


Paramo d'Assiiay . . 
Guanacas . . 




Humboldt. 
Bouaruer. 


Pass of Quindiu . . . 
" el Almorsadero 
" La Cumbre 
" Peuquenes. . 
" elPortillo . . 

Mountains of Brazil: 

Itambe 

Villarica chain, Sierra 
Piedade .... 


de 


Humboldt. 

cc 

Pentland. 

Dr. Gillies. 

a 

Eschwege. 
cc 


Itacolurni 






cc 



ISLANDS IN THE PACIFIC, POLYNESIA, AUSTRALASIA, &c. 



Isle of Bourbon, highest point 
Mount Ambotismene . . . 

Adam's Peak 

Mount Slamat or Tajai . . 

'' Sumbung .... 

" Gounnong Pasama. or 

Ophir ....'. 

Volcano of Matua .... 

Peak of Unimak . . . . . 

Mowna Kea 

" Roa 

Tobreonou 

Mount Wellington, or Kosci- 
usco 

^^ Lindsay Lat. 28°20'S. 

" Canobolas-' 33 25 

'^ Edgecumbe .... 

ii Egmont 

Tongariro Mountain . . . 
Mount Erebus 

'^ Terror 



8,340 
11,506 

6,152 
11,930 



13,840 

4,500 

8,593 

13,953 

13,760 



5,700 
4,551 
9.630 
8J840 
6.200 
12',400 



Madagascar 

Ceylon 

Java 



Sumatra 
Kurile Is. 
Aleutian Is. 
Sandwich Is. 

a 

Otaheite 
New Holland 



New Zealand 



Antarctic 
Lauds 



Phys. Atlas. 
A. B, L. 

Juno-huhn. 



Raffles. 
Phys. Adas. 

(C 

Wilkes. 

cc 

Phys. Atlas. 

Strelizki. 

Mitchell. 

cc 

Bid well. 

Dieifenbach. 

cc 

Sir J C.Ross. 



484 



PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



LAKES AND INLAND SEAS. 



Names of Places, Mountains, &c. 


Heights 

in English 

feet. 


Countries in 
which 
situated. 


Authorities. 


Sirikol, source of the Oxus . 
Manasarovirar and Raikas Thai 

Chumurari Lake 

Titicaca 

Baikal 

Lake of Van 

Aral 

Caspian Sea, below the level 

of the Ocean 

Dead Sea, below the Ocean . 
Lake Superior ..... 

" of Lucerne .... 

" of Geneva .... 


15,630 
15,250 
15,000 
12,847 
1,535 
566 

36 

82 
1,312 

596 
1,407 
1,230 


Pameo 
Tibet 

Peru-Bolivia 
Asia 
Turkey in 

Asia 
Asia 

(' 
Syria 
N. America 

Switzerland 

a 


Wood. 
Strachey. 
Cunningham. 
Pentland. 
A. C. 
cc 

u 

R. Survey. 
Symond. 

Eschman. 



HEIGHTS OF SOME REMARKABLE INHABITED PLACES. 



Rumihuasi; Post Station . 



Ayavirini, Post Station . . 
Pati, Post Station 16° 05' 

Apo '' " 16 13S. 

Ancochallani, farm 17 
Tacora, village . . 17 
Calamarca . . . 16 
Antisana, farm 
Potosi, city . 
Puno, '' . 
Oruro, '^ 
La Paz, " 



35 

47 
54 



Miquipampa, village 
Cusco, city . . . 
Quito, capital of the Equator 
Chuquisaca, capital of Bolivia 
Bogota, capital of New 

Grenada 

Mexico 

Arequipa, city 

Highest villages on S. side of 

the Himalaya .... 
Ladak . . . . . . . 

Niti, village 

Darjeeling, town . . . 



15,542 



14,400 
14,376 
14,683 
13,690 
13,650 
13,454 
13,330 
12,870 
12,454 
12,226 
11,870 
11,384 
9,543 
9,343 

8,730 
7.570 

7;852 

13,000 
9,995 

11,473 
7,165 



Andes of 

Peru 
Peru 

cc 
cc 


Gaye. 

cc 

Pentland. 

cc 


cc 


cc 


cc 


cc 


Bolivia 

Equator 

Bolivia 

Pern 

Bolivia 


iC 

Humboldt. 
Pentland. 

cc 


Peru 

cc 

Bolivia 


Humboldt. 
Pentland. 
Humboldt, 
Pendand. 


N. Grenada 

Mexico 

Peru 


Humboldt. 

cc 

Pentland. 


Kumaon 
Tibet 
Kumaon 
Sekim Hima- 
laya. 


Strachey. 
A. C. 
Webb. 
Waugh. 



TABLE OF HEIGHTS. 



485 



Names of Places, Mountains, &c. 



Heights 

in Enelish 

feet. 



Countries in 
which 
situated. 



Authorities. 



Cabool 

Kandahar 

Teheran 

Kashmir, city 

Hospital of Great St. Bernard 

" of St. Gothard . . 

St. Veran, village .... 

Breuil, village 

Bareges, '^ 

Briangon, town 

Madrid, city 

Munich, " 

Geneva, " 

Lima, " 

Vienna " 

Milan, '^ 

Paris, Observatory .... 

Rome, Capitol 

Berlin 

41* 



6,382 

5,563 

4,137 

5,818 

8.110 

6^,808 

6,693 

6,584 

4,072 

4,285 

1,994 

1,764 

1,450 

520 

436 

420 

213 

151 

131 



Afghanistan 

a 

Persia 

Kashmir 

Alps, P. 

" C. 

" P. 
Pyrenees 
Alps, M. 
Spain 
Bavaria 
Switzerland 
Peru 
Austria 
Lombardy 
France 
Italy 
Prussia 



Burnes. 
Humboldt. 
A- C. 
Hugel. 
A. B. L. 

cc 

ii 

p. s. 

A. B. L. 



Pentland, 
A. B. L. 



GLOSSAEY. 



A^BiEs. Lat. A fir-tree. Specific name of a tree. 

Abyssi'nica. Lat. Abyssinian; belonging or relating to Abyssinia. 

Aca'cia. Gr. ake, a point, and akios, not subject to worms : a thorny tree. 
A genus of the family Leguminosse and order Mimosas. About 300 
species are enumerated ; many of them yield gum. 

Aca''cia aha^bica. Arabian acacia. 

Aca'cias. Trees belonging to the genus acacia. 

A'ciD. A term given by chemists to those compound bodies which unite 
with salifiable bases to form salts: for example, a compound of sulphur 
and oxygen, called sulphuric acid, unites with magnesia and forms a 
salt named sulphate of magnesia, or Epsom salts. 

Aci'duloxjs. Sourish; possessing acid properties. 

Ackocho'rdi. Lat.: plural of acrochordus. 

Ackocho'rbus. From the Greek akrochqrdon, a wart. A genus of non- 
venemous ophidians, whose bodies are entirely covered by scales re- 
sembling warts : these scales, or rather squamous tubercles, are small, 
numerous, rhomboidal, and surmounted by a small horn or point, more 
or less sharp. 

Adanso'nia. A genus of plants named in honor of Michel Adanson, a 
famous French botanist, born in 1727. Adanso'nia digita'ta. Sour gourd. 
Monkeys' bread or Baobab tree of Senegal, which is considered the largest 
or rather the broadest tree in the world. " Several measured by Adanson, 
were from sixty-eight to seventy-eight feet in circumference, but not ex- 
traordinarily high. 7'he trunks were from twelve to fifteen feethigh, before 
they divided into many horizontal branches, which touched the ground at 
their extremities ; these were from forty-five to fifty-five feet long, and were 
so large that each branch was equal to a monstrous tree ; and where the 
water of a neighboring river had washed away the earth, so as to leave 
the roots of one of these trees bare and open to the sight, they measured 
110 feet long, without including those parts of the roots which remained 
covered. It yields a fruit which resembles a gourd, and which serves for 
vessels of various uses; the bark furnishes a coarse thread, which they 
form into ropes, and into cloth with which the natives cover their middle 
from the girdle to the knees; the small leaves supply them with food in 
lime of scarcity, while the large ones are used for covering their houses, 
or, by burning, for the manufacture of good soap. At Sierra Leone this 
tree does not grow larger than an orchard apple tree." Loudon. 

A'dit. Lat. adeo, I approach. A horizontal shaft or passage in a mine, 
either for access, or for carrying off water. 

AfktcaVus. Lat. African ; belonging or relating to Africa. 

Agallo'chum-. From the Gr. aggalomai, to become splendid. A resinous, 
aromatic wood, burned by the Chinese and Japanese for the sake of its 
agreeable odour, from the Excceca'ria aggallo'cha. Aloes wood 



488 GLOSSARY. 

A'gamous. From the Gr. a, privative, and gamos, marriage. Having no sex. 

A'{tate. a name given to all varieties of quartz whicii have not a vitreous 
aspect; are compact, semi-transparent, and whose fracture resembles 
that of wax. Agates are of various colors and admit of a fine polish. 
According to Theophrastes and Pliny, the name comes from the river 
Achates in Sicily, now the Drillo, on the banks of which the first agates 
were found. 

Agla'ia. From the Gr. ^gZaia, beauty, elegance. A genus of plants, trees 
or shrubs, of which there are five or six species in the Island of Java. 
The odora'ta is one. 

A/'gua. Spanish. Water. 

AinA. From the Gr. aira, a tare, cockle weed. A genus of the family of 
Gramlnece, or grasses, of the tribe of Avenacese. Hair-grass. A. ant- 
arclica. Antarctic hair-grass. 

Aia-PLANTs. A name given to certain parasitic plants which were sup- 
posed to be nourished by the air alone, without contact with the soil. 
There are some species which will live many months suspended by a 
string in a warm apartment. 

Alba, ^ 

Albus, C Lat. White. 

Album, 3 

Albi'no. Spanish. From the Lat. albus, white. Applied to individuals of 
the human race, (and extended also to some other animals), who have 
white hair; the iris, pinkish or very pale; and the eyes unable to bear 
much light. Albinos are most frequent in the negro race; but it does not 
seem to be true that there are tribes of Albinos in any part of the Avorld. 

Al'bumen^. From the Lat. albus, white. A chemical term, applied to an 
immediate organic principle, which constitutes the chief part of the 
while of egg. Animal and vegetable albumen are nearly the same in com- 
position. 

Al'caltne. Having properties of an alkali. 

Alchemi'xlas or Alchemi'lla. Arabic. A genus of plants of the family 
Rosd.cea:'. The J. vulgaris, common ladies' mantle. 

A'lga. Lat. Sea-weed. 

A^LGiB. Plural of alga. Name of a sub-class of crytogaraous plants, which 
is subdivided into three families: the Phy'ccce, or submerged sea-weeds; 
the Lichens, or emerged sea-weed, and the Byssa'cece, or amphibious sea- 
weeds. The alg[E or sea-weeds are agamous plants which live in the air, 
on the surface or at the bottom of fresh or salt water ; they are remark- 
able for their cellular or filamentous structure into which no vessels enter. 

Alha'gi. Arabic. Genus of plants of the family of Leguminosae. The 
alhagi maurorum grows in the deserts of Egypt; a sweet, gummy sub- 
stance exudes from the bark in form of small yellowish grains, which, 
it appears, was the manna the Hebrews ate while in the deserts of Arabia 
Petria. 

Ai/kalt or al'cai.1. A chemical term formerly applied to potash and soda : 
it now embraces the oxides of potassium, sodium, lithium, barium, stron- 
tium and calcium, metals which decompose water at ordinary tempera- 
tures and absorb, that is, combine with its oxygen, giving out heat and 
flame. 
A'loe. Name of a genus of plants which includes very many species. The 
inspissated juice of several of these species constitutes the varieties of the 
medicine called Soccotrine, Barbadoes aloes, &c. 
Allu'vial. Of the nature of alluvium. 



GLOSSARY. 489 

ALLtrVioN-,7 From the Lat. a/Zwo, T wash upon. Gravel, sand, iriud and 
Alluvium, 3 other transported matter, washed down by rivers and floods 

upon lands not permanently submerged beneath water. A deposit formed 

of transported matter. 

LPi^NUM, > j^^j,^ Alpine; belonging or relating to the Alps. 

Alu'minum .or Alumi'nium. From alu'men, alum. The mettaloid which 
forms the basis of alum; of alumina or pure argil. 

Amart'llis. From the Gr. amarusso, to be resplendent. A nymph in 
ancient mythology. Name of a genus of plants, forming the type of 
the family of Amaryllldece, composed of about sixty species. Generally 
they are bulbous plants, remarkable for the size and beauty of their 
flowers. 

AMBLTuui'iircHus. From the Gr. amblus, obtuse, and rugchos, snout. Name 
of a genus of iguanian reptiles. 

A'methyst. From the Gr. amitlmsios, not drunk. The ancients gave this 
name to a stone in which the wine red colour was tempered with violet. 
A violet variety of hyaline quartz. 

Ammo^nia. a colourlous gas of a peculiar, pungent odour. It causes death 
when respired; and its strong alcaline reaction distinguishes it from all 
other elastic fluids. It is liberated from all its chemical combinations by 
the alkalis. Spirits of hartshorn is a solution of this gas. 

Ammoni'acal. Of the nature of ammonia. 

Am'monite. From the Lat. Amnion, a name of Jupiter. A fossil so called 
from a supposed resemblance to the horns engraven on the heads of 
Jupiter Ammon. In certain parts of England called snake- stones. Am- 
monites are fossil shells, rolled upon the same plane, consisting of a 
series of separate chambers, like the nautilus. 

Amor'phous. From the Gr. a, privative, and inor/)/ie, form. Without definite 
or regular shape. 

Ampe'lid;e. Lat. (ampelis), name of a family of birds in the tribe of den- 
tirostres. 

Ampeli'de^. From the Gr. ampelos, a vine. Name of the family of Phanero- 
gamous plants, which includes the vine. 

Amphi'bious. From the Gr. amphibios, two-lived. Having the faculty of 
living in two elements. 

Amphiu^ma. From the Gr. amphi, both, on all sides, and uma, that which 
has been moistened. A genus of Batrachians in which lungs but no 
bronchjge exist through life. Amphiu'ma menop'oma. A kind of Batrachian 
which resembles the Salamander. It is found in Louisiana. 

A^MPLtTUDE. In astronomy denotes the angular distance of a celestial body, 
at the time it rises or sets, from the east or west points of the horizon. It 
is sometimes used to designate the horizontal distance a projectile reaches 
when thrown from a gun. 

Amt'ris. From the Gr.amuros, not. perfumed. A genus of phanerogamous 

plants, which is the type of the family of Amyri'deoe which is allied to the 

; family of turpentines. Jlnii/ris gileade'nsis. The Balm of Gilead. Amy'ris 

kataf. The myrrh tree. Amy'ris opoba'lsanmm. The opobalsam, or balsam 

of Mecca. 

Ana'nas. Portuguese. Pine-apple. Genus of the family Bromeliuceoc, and 
type of the tribe Ananacene. 

Antiro^meda. Mythological name of a constellation. Genus of the family 
Ericacese, and type of the tribe Andromedecc or Andromedas. 



490 GLOSSARY. 

Angf/ltca akchenge'lica. Garden Angelica. Root and seeds used in me- 
dicine as an aromatic stimulant. 

An(>ui''nus. Lat. Of the nature of a snake; belonging or relating to a 
snake. 

Ane'roid Babg'meter. Consists of a cylinder of copper with a very thin 
and corrugated end, partially exhausted of air and hermetically sealed. 
The effect of the varying pressure of the atmosphere on the thin end is 
magnified by a system of levers, so as to affect the index of a dial like 
that of a vi^atch or clock. This is a French invention, but was patented 
in England, in the year 1844. See Barometer. 

ArfiMA^LcaLA. Lat. Animalcule. 

Anima'lcul^. Lat. plural of Animalcula. 

Anima'lcule. a diminutive animal. 

small that they cannot be seen by the unassisted eye. 

AmsA'Tuivr. Lat. Belonging or relating to aniseed. Specific name of the 
tree which produces star-aniseed. 

Ano'lis. a kind of Saurian, called anoli in the Antilles. Also called, long- 
toed lizard, or dactyloa. 

An^kual. From the Lat. annus, a year. Yearly. A plant which rises from 
the seed, reaches perfection, and perishes within a year, is termed an 
annual. 

Axta'rctica. Lat. Antarctic. 

Antelope monta''na. Mountain Antelope. A^ rupicapra. Chamois. A. 
cervicapra. Common antelope. A. dorcas. Gazelle. ^. gazella. Algazel. 
j1. mhorr. Mhorr. 

A'nther. From the Gr. ani/iem, a flowery herb. In botany: the essential 
part of the stamen. The small yellowish body, compared to a diminutive 
leaf folded on itself, which crowns the stamen, and in which the pollen is 
formed. 

ANTiauo'RUM. Lat. Of the ancients. 

A'pHis. Gr. A plant-louse ; a vine-fretter. 

A'pHiDEs. Plural of aphis. 

Apgct'nejs. From the Gr. apo, far from, and knon, dog. Having the virtue 
of driving away dogs, the plant which kills dogs. Botanical name of a 
family of plants of which the genus apo'cynum is the type. 

A^ptexodt''tes. From the Gr. apten, without wings, and dutes, diver. A genus 
of birds. A'pienody'tes patagonica, A species of Penguin. 

A^PTERYX. From the Gr. apteros, without wings. Name of a genus of birds. 

AatTEOus BOCKS. Are those formed by deposits from water. 

AcLuiLA. Lat. An eagle. Aquila albicilla. The fishing eagle. 

Arauca^ria. From Arauco. Name of a department or district of Chile 
where the first species was seen. Name of a genus of the family of 
conifers. Arauca'ria excclsa. The Norfolk Island pine. 

Arbu^tus. Lat. A shrub. A genus of plants. 

Arctoce'phalus. From the Gr. arklos, a bea.r,kephale head. Name of a 
genus of mammals. 

Arre'a. Lat. A Heron. Name of a genus of birds. Jtrde'a helias. The 
Sun Bird. 

A'rea of suhsit)exce. A geological expression used to designate a space 
which has settled. 

Arf/ca. Cabbage-tree. A genus of plants of the family of Palmse. Are^ca 
catechu. The medicinal or betel-nut palm, 

Aretsta'ceotjs. From the Lat. arena, sand. Sandy ; of the nature of sand. 

Argen'xeum. Lat. Silvery ; relating to silver. 



GLOSSARY. 491 

AttGENTi'FEROus. From the Lat. argentum, silver, and fcro, I bear. Con- 
taining silver. 

Argilla'ceous. From the Lat. argilla, clay or argil. Of the nature of clay. 

Argoxau'ta. Lat. From the Gr. argo, name of a vessel, and naules, a na- 
vigator. Name of a genus of cephalopodous mollusks. 

Armadi'llo. Spanish. Diminutive of armac/o, armed. Name of a mammal 
of the family of edentata or edentates. 

Aroma'ticus. Lat. Aromatic ; spicy. 

Ar'sextc. a metal of a shining, steel gray colour. Heated in contact with 
atmospheric air, it rapidly absorbs oxygen, and forms arsenious acid, which 
is the poison commonly called arsenic, or rafs bane. Arsenic is found in 
its metallic state, in the form oxide or arsenious acid, or white arsenic ; 
and combined with sulphur, forming orpiment, and realgar. 

Arteme'sije. "^ A tribe of plants, of which the genus Artemesia is the type. 

Artemesias. 5 Many of them are used in medicine. 

Arte'siak. From Artois, name of a province of France where especial 
attention has been given to a means of obtaining water, which consists 
in boring vertical perforations of small diameter in the exterior crust of 
the earth, frequently of great depth. These are termed Artesian wells. 

Articula'ta. Lat. From articulus, a joint or articulation. Having joints 
or articulations. 

Ascle'ptas. a name of Esculapius. A genus of phanerogamous plants. 
Ascle'pias giga'nlea. Mudar of the Hindoos. The milky juice is very caustic ; 
the bark of the root as well as the juice are used in medicine by the 
Asiatics. 

Asphalt. ~) From the Gr. a, privative, and sphalto, I slip, or asphaltos, 

AspHALTuM. 5 bitumen. Used anciently as a cement. A black brittle bitu- 
men, found on the surface and banks of the Dead Sea, hence called the 
Asphaltic lake. 

Asphode'le;e. Name of a family of phaner6gamous plants. 

Assi^MiLATE. From the Lat. ad, and similare, to render similar. Assimila- 
tion is the act by which living bodies appropriate and transform into their 
own substance, matters with which they may be placed in contact. In 
man, assimilation is a function of nutrition. 

Asple^niieo'lta. Compound of aspknium, a genus of ferns, and /o/ia, leaves. 
Having leaves resembling those of the asplenium. 

A'sTER. From the Gr. aster, a star. A name given to the plant by the 
Greeks in allusion to the radiate form of the flowers. Name of a genus 
of plants which forms the type of the asteroides or asters — literally, sfar- 
foivers. 

Astra'oalt. Lat. plural of Astragalus. 

AsTRA^GALUs. Lat. Name of a genus of phanerogamous plants of the 
family of leguminosre. 

Atoll. A chaplet or ring of coral, enclosing a lagoon or portion of the 
ocean in its centre. 

Aucu'uA. 7 A genus of plants of the family of Rhamnoides. There is but 

Auku'ba.3 one species, which grows in Japan. Aumba Japonica. 

Auche'js'ia. From the Gr. auchenios, belonging to the head or neck. Lat. 
naine of a genus of mammals, the Llama. Also, a genus of coleopterous 
insects. 

AuRi'cuLA. Lat. Little ear. A genus of phanerogamous plants of the 
family of Primulucerc. 

Auhi'ferous. From the Lat. aurum, gold, and fcio, I bear. Gold-bearing 
containing gold. 



492 GLOSSARY. 

Aurochs. An alteration of the German Auerochs, wild-bull. Their race 
is now almost extinct; a few individuals are found in the foiests of 
Lithuania, &c. 

A^stra'^^s S ^^** ^6^o"g^"§ °^ relating to the south. 

Aza'l^a. From the Gr. azalea, burned. A genus of phanerogamous plants 
of the family of Ericaceae. 

Azf/darach. From the Arab. Azadaracht, a name given by Avicenna to a 
plant. 

Azote. 7 From the Gr. a, privative and zo^on, life. The name given 

Azotic gas. 5 by chemists to a gas, now also called nitrogen, which will 
support neither respiration nor combustion. It constitutes seventy-nino 
per cent, of the atmosphere, and enters into the composition of all animal 
matter, except fatty substances, and into a certain number of proximate 
vegetable principles. 

Baccife^rxtm, Lat. Compound of bacca, a berry, and few, I bear. Berry- 
^ bearing. Specific name of a plant. 

BAXAifCE OF TORsiojvr, or TORSION BALATfCE. A machine invented by Cou- 
lomb for measuring the intensities of electric or magnetic forces, by esta- 
blishing an equilibrium between them and the force of torsion. 

Bax^'na. Lat. A whale. Name of a genus of mammals, belonging to the 
order Cetacea. Balce'namystece^tus. The common whale. Balce'nu gibbosa. 
A kind of whale which has five or six protuberances on its back. 

Ban'ksia. a genus of phanerogamous plants of the family of Proteaceae. 

Bao^bab. See Adansonia. 

Ba'rium. From the Gr. barus, heavy. A metal obtained from barytes by 
Sir H. Davy. 

Barometer. From the Gr. baros, weight, and metron, a measure. An in- 
strument for measuring the weight of atmospheric air. 

arometric. > Belonging, or relating to the barometer. 

Barometrical. 3 o &' o 

Barringto'nia. a genus of phaner6gamous plants of the family of Myr- 
taceae, and the type of the tribe of Barringtonice. 

Ba^salt. An Ethiopian word. A black or bluish gray rock, harder than 
glass, very tenacious, and consequently ditficult to break: it is homo- 
genous in appearance although essentially composed of pyroxene and 
feldspar, with a large proportion of oxide of iron or titanium. Basalt is 
considered by all geologists to be a product of igneous formation. 

Basa'ltic. Belonging or relating to basalt. 

Batra'hcian. From the Gr. batrachos, a frog. The name given by natura- 
lists to those reptiles which resemble frogs in their organization. Batrah- 
cians form the fourth order in the class of Reptiles. 

Beaufo'rtia. Name of a genus of the family of Myrtacese, named in honor 
of Mary, the Duchess of Beaufort, who encouraged the study of Botany. 

Belem'nites. From the Gr. belemnon, a dart. A genus of fossil dibranchiate 
cephalopods, the shells of which are chambered and perforated by a 
siphon, but internal. They are long, straight and conical ; and commonly 
called " thunder stones." 

BtifjAMi'ifA. Lat. Benjamin. A genus of plants ; also the specific name 
of a plant. 

Berni'cla. Generic name of a kind of goose, having a short beak. Ber- 
ni'cla cyana^ptera. The goose of Shoa. 



GLOSSARY. 493 

BER'Tt. A mineral allied to the emerald. It is transparent, of a pale green, 
colour, and in Brazil it is sometimes sold under the name of emerald. 

Bete'l. The leaf of the betel or Siriboa pepper. 

Be^jla. Lat. Birch. Name of a genus of plants. Be' tula nana, Dwarf 
birch. 

Betdloides. From betula, a birch-tree, the Gr. eidos, resemblance. Specific 
name of a plant. 

BiGNo^NTA. A genus of plants named in honor of the Abbey Bignon, the 
Librarian of Louis XIV. 

Bis'muth. From the Germ. Wismuth. A brittle, yellowish white metal. 

Bi'tumen. a combustible mineral, composed of carbon, hydrogen and 
oxygen. 

BixA OiiLEAXA. A plant which produces a colouring matter, called annoilo. 

Boa. Name of a genus of non-venemous reptiles. 

BoHEA. Specific name of a tea-plant. 

BoMBAX. From hombux, one of the Greek names of cotton. A genus of 
plants of the family Malvaceae. Bombax heptaphyllum. A kind of cotton- 
tree. Bombax ceiba. The cotton-wood tree, much valued for making 
canoes. 

BoNDtrc. A synonym of the Guilandina. Specific name of a plant. 

Bora'cic acid. An acid obtained from borax, consisting of boron and 
oxygen. 

Bora'ssus. From the Gr. 6omssos, a date. A genus of the family of Palms. 
Borassus fMbelliformus. The fan-leaved palm. 

Bo'rate. The salt resulting from a combination of boracic acid and a 
salifiable base, as the borate of soda. 

Bo'rax. Tinkal. A natural compound of soda and boracic acid. 

Boron-. A simple or undecomposable substance, the basis of boracic acid 
and borax. 

BoRi'cHTHxs. From the Fr. borgne, one-eyed or blind, and the Gr. ichtkus, a 
fish. 

BoRRAGi^NiiE. Name given by Jussieu to a group of plants. 

Borrer'ia. From Borrera, name of a man. A genus of phanerogamous 
plants of the family of Rubiacese. 

Boswe'llia. a genus named in honor of Dr. John Boswell. Boswellia ser^ 
rata. The olibanum tree. 

BoTASTT. From the Gr, botane, plant. The branch of natural history which 
embraces the knowledge and study of plants. 

Botanic. Belonging or relating to botany. 

Bos. Lat. An ox. A genus of ruminating mammals, embracing several 
species. Bos aurus. The Urus. Bos caffer. Cape buflfalo. Bos bubalus. 
Common buff'alo. Bos Americanus. The Bison. Bos moschatus. The 
Musk ox. Bos gruniens. The Yak. 

BouLBERS, or Bowlders. Rounded masses of stone lying upon the surface 
or loosely imbedded in the soil. 

BoTjLDER roRMATioN, or Erratic block formation. A geological terra ap- 
plied to a part of the diluvial drift. See Ruschenberger's Natural History. 

Brac'te^. Lat. Bracts. Floral leaves, different in colour from other 
leaves. 

Bras'sica. Lat. Cabbage. 

Breccia. Italian. A rock composed of an agglutination of angular frag- 
ments. When the fragments are rolled pebbles, it constitutes a conglo- 
merate rock, called pudding stone. 

Brevise'tum. Lat. Brevis, short, and seium, a bristle. A specific name. 

42 



494 GLOSSARY. 

Brexia. From the Gr. brexis, rain: in allusion to the protection from rain 

afforded by its ample foliage. A genus of plants of the family of Brexia- 

ceae. 
Bubo. Lat. An owl. A specific as well as generic name. Bubo maxi- 

mus. A kind of owl. 
Bu'fo. ]jat. A toad. Bufo Agua. A Brazilian toad. 
BcPHA^GA. Lat. From the Gr. bous,a.n ox, and phago, I eat. A genus of 

birds, which includes the African beef-eater. 
Bursa. Lat. A sack, a purse or pouch. 
Bu'tea. a genus of the family of Papillionacese, named in honor of John, 

Count of Bute, a cultivator of botanic science. Butea frondosa yields a 

gum {biUed) which has been confounded with Kino. 

Cac'ti. Lat. Plural of cactus. 

Cac'tus. From the Gr. kaktos, spiny plant. Name of a genus of the family 
of Cactaceae. Cactus coccine'llifer. The cochineal cactus. Cactus opuntia. 
Indian fig. 

Caca'lia. Name of a genus of phanerogamous plants of the family of Com- 
positse. Several species are useful as condiments. 

Cachalot, or Cachelot. Fr. Name of the spermaceti whale. Used to de- 
signate a variety of the order of cetaceans, which has teeth in both jaws. 

Coccine'llifer. From coccinella (the diminutive of the Lat. coccinus, crim- 
son,) a genus of coleopterous insects, and fero, I bear. A specific name. 

Cai/mium. a white metal, much like tin. Its ores are associated with 
those of zinc. Discovered in 1818. 

Ca'ducous. From the Lat. cado, 1 fall. In Botany when a part is temporary, 
and soon disappears or falls off, it is said to be caducous. 

C^ci'lt^. From the Lat. rteaes, blind. A tribe of Batrachians. 

C^spiTo''sA. Lat. From ccEspes, turf or sod. Belonging or relating to turf. 

Cafeine. Fr. In chemistry the name of the proximate principle of coffee. 

Cajapute,^ a Malay name for a greenish, volatile oil used as a remedy 

CiJAPUTA, 5 in rheumatism, &c. 

Ca'lamus. a genus of phanerogamous plants of the family of Palms. Ca^la- 
mus draco. An East Indian plant which yields an astringent substance 
called Dragon's blood. Ca'lamus rotan The rattan plant. 

Calca'reous. From the Lat. calx, calcis, lime. Belonging to or relating to 
lime. Calcareous rocks are those of which lime forms a principal part. 

Calceola'ria. From the Lat. calceolus, a little shoe. A remarkable genus 
of phanerogamous plants of the family of Scrophulariacese. 

Cal'cium. From the Lat. calx, calcis, lime. A metal discovered by SirH. 
Davy in 1807, which united with oxygen forms oxide of calcium or lime. 

Callitri'che. From the Gr. kallithrix, having luxuriant hair. A genus of 
aquatic plants. Also the name of a genus of American monkeys. 

Calo'ric. From the Lat. caleo, I am warm. The term used by chemists to 
designate the matter of heat. 

Calori'fic. Belonging or relating to caloric. 

Calyca'^'thus. From the Gr. kalux^ a calyx, and anthos, flower. A genus 
of the family of Calycanthacese. 

Caltp'tomene. From the Gr. A'aZtipilos, concealed, and wimo, I remain. Name 
of a genus of birds. 

Cam'brian system. From Cambria in Wales. A name given by geolo- 
gists to the lowest sedimentary rocks, characterized by fossil remains of 
animals, lowest in the scale of organization, such as corallines, &c. It is 
also called the Schistose system, on account of its slaty nature. 



GLOSSARY. 495 

Camel'iia. a genus of the family of Aurantiucese, named in honor of 
Kama], a botanist. It contains the tea plants. Came'llia sasanqua. Lady 
Bank's Camellia. Came'llia odorifera. Sweet smelling Camellia. 

Campa'nuia. From the Lat. campana, a bell, from the shape of its corolla. 
A genus of phanerogamous plants of the family of Campanulacese, of 
which it is the type. 182 species are described. 

Campiiorosma. From the Lat. camphora, camphor, and the Gr. osme, odour. 
A genus of plants of the family of Chenopodaceae. 

Campho'ra. Lat. Camphor. Belonging or relating to camphor. 

CakarieVsis. Lat. Belonging or relating to the Canary islands. 

CAKDELA^BRuivr. Lat. A candlestick. 

Ca^nine. From the Lat. canis, a dog. Teeth which resemble those of a 
dog are so called; the canine teeth of the upper jaw in man are com- 
monly called the eye-teeth. 

Caou'tchotjc. Gum elastic; India-rubber, a substance obtained from the 
Jatropha elaslica, the Fines indica and the Urceola elastica. 

Cape'nsis. Lat. Belonging or relating to the Cape of Good Hope. 

Caraga'jja. a genus of plants of the family of Papilionaceae. 

Car'box. From the Lat. car6o, charcoal. A chemical element or undecom- 
posed body. The diamond is pure carbon. It is the basis of anthracite, 
and of all the varieties of mineral coal, and is one of the principal consti- 
tuents of all organic bodies. 

Carbo'nic acid, a compound of carbon and oxygen. 

CAR'noifATE. Any compound of carbonic acid and a salifiable base, as 
carbonate of lime, carbonate of soda. 

CARBojifi'FERous. From the Lat. car6o, coal, /ero, I bear, coal-bearing ; con- 
taining carbon. In geology the term is applied to those strata which con- 
tain coal, and to the period when the coal measures were formed. 

Cardamine. Gr. Name of a plant. A genus of the family of cruciferas. 
Lady's smock. Cardamine hirsuta. Hairy Cardamine. 

Cardui. Lat. Genitive case of carduus, a thistle. Specific name of a 
butterfly. 

Carni'vora. From the Lat. caro, carnis, flesh, and voi-o, I eat. Name of a 
family of Mammals. 

Cartila'ginous fishes, a term used to designate that division of the class 
of fishes which includes only those having cartilaginous instead of bony 
skeletons. 

Caryo'phtllus. Lat. A garden pink. A genus of plants of the family of 
caryophy'llese. Caryo'phyllus aroma' ticus. The clove-tree. 

Caryo'ta. a genus of Palms of equatorial Asia. The caryola urcns derives 
its specific name from a burning sensation its fruit imparts when eaten. 

Ca'spia. Lat. Belonging or relating to the Caspian Sea. 

Cas'sia. From the Gr. kassia, cinnamon. A genus of plants of the family 
of Papilionaceae. The genus contains more than 300 species. 

CA'sTANosPF/RRNuivr. From the Gr. ^asfrmon, chestnut, and spcrwja, fruit. A 
genus of the family of PapilionaceEc. 

Casuari'n^. a family of plants separated from that of the conifers. The 
casuari'ncB are found in New Holland, and in India, and are remarkable 
for the absence of leaves. 

Cata'lpa. a genus of plants of the family of the BignoniaceaQ. 

Cat'echtj. An astringent extract, used in medicine. 

Cat's eye. A beautiful silicious mineral, penetrated by fibres of asbestos, 
which, when polished, reflects an effulgent, pearly light, much resembling 
the mutable reflections from the eye of a cat. 



496 GLOSSARY. 

Caule'rpa. From the Gr. kaulos, a stem, and er/jo, I creep. A genns of algae 
of the family of Zoosper^meae. There are about 35 species of caulerpa, 
which inhabit equatorial seas. The cauU'rpa proWfera belongs to the Me- 
diterranean. 

Ca'via. Genus of mammals of the family of rodents, including the guinea- 

Ce'bus. Lat. Name of a genus of monkeys ; the marmoset. 

Cecro'pis. a genus of birds. 

Cedre^la. Genus of plants of the family of Cedrelaceaa. 

Ce/ba. Synonym of Bomb ax, cotton. Specific name of a kind of cotton. 

Centa'urea. a genus of plants of the family of Synantherese-Cyanareje 

and type of the tribe of Centaiirieae. 
Cerati'tes. From the Gr. keratetes, horned. A generic name of certain 

insects. 
Ceuato''des. From the Gr. keratodes, formed of horns. A genus of mollusks. 
Cer^eal. From the Lat. Ceres, corn. Applied to grasses which produce the 

bread corns ; as wheat, rye, barley, oats, rice, &c. 
CEHEA'tiA. Lat. Name of a tribe of grasses. 
Cereo'psis. From the Gr. keros, wax, and opsis, aspect." A genns of birds of 

the order of palmipedes and family of lamellir6stres. It is marked by a 

•wax-like membrane on the beak. Cereopsis striata. A kind of goose. 
Ce'rittm. Named after the planet Ceres. A white brittle metal discovered 

in 1803, by Hisinger and Berzelius. 
Ckr'thia. Latin. Name of a genus of passerine birds, commonly called 

creepers. 
Cer'vus. Latin. A stag. A genus of mammals. - 
Ceta'cea. From the Gr. ketos, a whale. A genus of pisciform mammals 

that have fins in place of feet, and inhabit the sea. Name of an order of 

aquatic mammals. 
Chalk. Earthy carbonate of lime. 
Chambered shells. A term used to designate those shells of mollusks 

which are divided internally into cells or chambers by partitions. 
Cham'jerops. From the Gr. c/iamai, on the ground, and rops, a brush. Name 

of a genus of palms. Chamxrops humilis. The dwarf fan palm. 
Cheiro'ptera. From the Gr. cheir, hand, and pteron, a wing; signifying the 

hand has become a wing. Name of a family of mammals, including the 

bats. 
Cheiros'temois-. From the Gr. cheir, hand, and stemon, filament. A genus 

of plants of the family of Sterculiacese, and tribe of bombaceae. 
Chelo'js-iak. From the Gr. chelone, a tortoise. Applied to reptiles resembling 

tortoises. 
Chel'td^e. From the Gr. chelus, a tortoise. A tribe of reptiles of the family 

Emy'des. 
Chlam'xphore. From the Gr. c/iZamjis, a cloak, and jt?/iero, I bear. A genus 

of mammals of the tribe of armadillos. 
Chlena'ce^. From the Gr. chlaina, a cloak. A tribe of plants, native in 

Madagascar. 
Chloa^nthes. From the Gr. chloros, greenish yellow, and anthos, flower. A 

genus of plants of the family of chloanthacese. 
Chlori'tic. From the Gr. chloros, green. Belonging or relating to chlorite, 

an earthy mineral found in the cavities of slate rocks. 
Chrome, Chro'mium. From the Gr. chroma, colour. A whitish brittle metal, 

discovered by Vauquelin in 1797. In union with oxygen it forms chromic 

acid. 



GLOSSARY. 497 

Cichotia'ce.ie. Prom the Gr. kichore, chichory. A tribe of plants of the 
family of Compositag. 

Ci'bri. Plural of cirrus. 

Ci''BRo-cT7MULtJs. A sondercloud ; a kind of cloud. The cirro-cumulus is 
intermediate between the cirrus and cumulus, and is composed of small 
well defined masses closely arranged. 

Ci'rro-stratus. a wanecloud. The cirro-stratus, intermediate between 
the cirrus and stratus, consists of horizontal masses separated into groups, 
with which the sky is sometimes so mottled as to suggest the idea of re- 
semblance to the back of a mackerel. 

Ci'rrtjs. Lat. A tendril. A kind of cloud. Applied to cartain append- 
ages of animals; as the beard from the end and sides of the mouth of 
certain fishes. The cirrus cloud consists of fibres or curling streaks 
which diverge in all directions. It occupies the highest region, and is 
frequently the first cloud which is seen after a continuance of clear wea- 
ther. 

Ci'sTus. A genus of plants of the family of cistaceae. 

Cla^'rkia. Proper name. A genus of plants of the tribe of epilobise. 

CiAT-SLATE. A rock which resembles clay or shale, but is generally dis- 
tinguished by its structure ; the particles having been re-arranged, and 
exhibiting what is called slaty cleavage. It is one of the metamorphic 
rocks. 

Clatto'kia. a genus of plants of the family of Portulacese-calandrineas. 

Cleavage. The mechanical division, the laminae of rocks and minerals, to 
show the constant direction in which they may be separated. 

Cierode'jstdrox. From the Gr. kleros, accident, and dendron, tree. In allu- 
sion to its accidental effects in medicine. A genus of plants of the family 
of Verbenaceae-Lantanese. 

Coal meascres. The geological formation in which coal is found. 

Co'balt. From the Germ, kobold, a devil, A brittle metal of a reddish gray 
colour. Its ores are always associated with arsenic. 

Cobra capello. Portu. cobra, snake, and capello, a cawl or hood. Hood 
snake, a venomous serpent. 

Coca. Quechua or aboriginal Peruvian word. Specific name of the genus 
Erythroxylum. 

Coccine'lla. From the Gr. kokkinos, scarlet. A genus of coleopt^erous in- 
sects: commonly called Lady birds, 

Coc'cus. From the Gr. kokkos, a seed which dyes scarlet. A genus of in- 
sects of the order Hemlp''tera. Coccus lacca. A species of cochineal insect. 
Coccus ilicus. Green oak cochineal. 

Co'cos. Gr. A genus of palms; the cocoanut. Cocas olera^cia. The oil cocoa- 
nut. 

CoDi'uM. From the Gr. kodion, a fleece. A genus of plants of the tribe 
siphoneae. Codium bursa and Codium flabelliforme are species. 

Colo'bus. From the Gr. kolobos, mutilsiled. A genus of monkeys which be- 
long to the old world. Colobus comosus. A hairy monkey. 

Cotx/BRiFORM. From the Lat. coluber, a serpent, an adder, and forma, shape. 
Adder-shape. 

Colcm'ba. Lat. A pigeon. A genus of birds. Columbamigrato'ria. Wild 
pigeon. 

Colusi'biuh. a metal discovered in a mineral found in Massachusetts by 
Mr. Hachett, in 1801. 

Colu'mihAr. In the form of columns. 

42* 



498 GLOSSARY. 

CoMBu'sTioN-. The combination of two bodies accompanied by the extrica- 
tion of heat and light. When a body rapidly combines with oxygen, for 
example, with a disengagement of heat and light, it is said to undergo 
combustion. 

Comparative Aistatomt. The comparative study of the various parts of 
the bodies of different animals. 

CoMFo'siT^. A family of monopetalous plants. 

Conductor. Those substances which possess the property of transferring 
caloric or heat, and electricity, are termed conductors of heat or caloric, 
and conductors of electricity. 

Co5rFE''Ry^. Tribe of plants of the family of Zoospermeaj. It includes many 
sea-weeds. 

Con'gener. From the L at. cow, with, and gmus, race. Species belonging 
to the same genus, are termed congeners. 

Conglo'merate. From the Lat. conglomero, I heap together. Any rock com- 
posed of pebbles cemented together by another mineral substance, either 
calcareous, silicious or argillaceous. 

Co'nifer. From the Lat. conus, a cone, and /ero, I bear. A tree or plant 
which bears cones, such as pines, fir-trees, &c. 

Coni'ferje. a family of plants which includes the conifers. 

Co'ral. From the Gr. koreo, I ornament, and als^ the sea. The hard cal- 
careous support formed by certain polypi. 

CoRA'ixiNE. Belonging or relating to coral. 

Coralli'ne^. The corallines, a tribe of calciferous polypi. 

CoREo'psis. From the Gr. koris, a bug, and ojosis, aspect. A genus of plants. 

Cor'dia. a genus of plants of the family of Cordiaceae. It contains about 
150 species. 

Coria'ceous. From the Lat. corium, the hide of a beast. Leathery. 

CoRo^ifA. Lat. A crown. A genus of plants. 

Coro'n^. Plural of corona. 

CoRu^wDUM. A crystallized or massive mineral of extreme hardness, almost 
opaque, and of a reddish colour. It is allied to the sapphire, and is com- 
posed of nearly pure alumina. 

Cot'tus. a genus of fishes. 

CoTx'LEDoiir. From the Gr. katuledon, a seed-lobe. 

CoTTLE'Doyous. Belonging or relating to a cotyledon or seed lobe. 

Cra'ter. Lat. A great cup or bowl. The mouth of a volcano. 

Crate'riform. In form of a crater. 

Crateri''ferous. Containing craters. 

Creta''ceous. From the Lat. creta, chalk. Of the nature of chalk, relating 
to chalk. 

Criivoi'deje. From the Gr. krinon, a lily, and eidos, resemblance. A family 
of radiate animals. 

Crop out. When a rock, in place, emerges on the surface of the earth, it 
is said to crop out. 

Cro'ton-. a genus of plants of the family of Euphorbiacea?. 

CRuciFE'RiE. From the Lat. crux, crucis, a cross, and fero, I bear. A family 
of plants which have flowers in form of a Maltese cross. 

Cru'ciform. In shape of a cross. 

Crusta'cea. From the Lat. crusta, a crust. A clsss of articulated animals. 

CRusTA''cEAiir. An animal of the class of Crustacea; a crab. 

Crtptoga'mia. From the Gr. kruptos, concealed, and gamos, marriage. A 
class of plants, which are propagated without apparent seeds. 

Cryto'gamous. Belonging or relating to crytogdmia. 



GLOSSARY. 499 

Crtpto'nyx. From the Gr. Jcruptos, concealed, and onux, a nail. A genus of 
birds ; also, a genus of insects. 

Crystal. From the Gr. krustallos, ice. This term was originally applied to 
those beautiful transparent varieties of silica or quartz known under the 
name oi rock-crystal. When substances pass from the fluid to the solid 
state, they frequently assume those regular forms which are generally 
termed crystals. A crystal is any inorganic solid of homogeneous struc- 
ture, bounded by natural planes and right lines, symmetrically arranged. 

Crts'talline. Relating to, or resembling crystals. 

Crystalliza'tion". The process by which crystals are formed. 

CuciFE^RA Theba/ca. A palm of Egypt which grows to the height of 20 
feet. Also known as the genus Hyphcene, from the Gr. Huphaino, I en- 
twine. A fan-leaf palm of the tribe of Borassinese. 

Cu'cuLus. Lat. A cuckoo. A genus of passerine birds 

Cu'lex. Lat. A gnat. A genus of insects of the family of Dip'tera, and 
type of the tribe of Cullcides : culex pipiens, the common gnat. 

Cu'muli. Plural of cumulus. 

Cu^mulo-stra'tus. Twain cloud: it partakes of the appearance of the 
cumulus and stratus. 

Cu'mulus. a form of cloud. A convex aggregate of watery particles, in- 
creasing upwards from a horizontal base, and assuming more or less of 
a conical figure. 

Cur^^idens. Lat. Curvus, bent, and dens, tooth. Having a bent tooth. 

Cuspa'ria. a genus of plants, named after the tree which yields the An- 
gustura bark. 

CYAjfAP^TERA. From the Gr. kuanos, blue,'^and pteron, wing. A specific 
name. 

Cyaneroi'des. From the Gr. kuanos, blue, and eidos, resemblance. A family 
of medusae. 

Cy'cas. a genus of plants, the type of the family cycadeae. Cycas revoluta. 
Narrow-leaved cycas. 

Cyca'de^. a family of plants allied to the conifers. 

Cycai)a''ceous. Belonging or relating to the cycadese. 

Cy'cxas. From the Gr. kuklos, a circle. A genus of gasteropods. 

Cygnus. Lat. A swan. A genus of birds. Cygnus musicus. The whistling 
swan. 

Cyxoce'phalus. From the Gr. kuon, a dog, and kephale, head. A genus of 
mammals. Dog headed monkey or baboon. 

CYPERA^cEiE. Name of a family of herbaceous plants. 

Cyp'r^ea. From the Gr. kupris, Venus. A cowry. A genus of mollusks. 
Cyprcea moneta. The money cowry. 

CYPRi'NiDiB. From the Gr. kuprinos, a carp. Name of a family of fishes. 

Cystosei'ri;e. From the Gr. kustis, a vesicle, and seira, a chain. A tribe of 
sea-weeds. 

Dac'tyi.is. From the Gr. c?aA;fM/os, a finger. A genus of the family of Gra- 

mineae. Dactylis ccsspitosa. Tussock grass. 
Dahlia. After Dahl, a Swedish botanist. Genus of plants of the family 

of CompositEs. 
Dalbe'rgia. After Dalberg, a Swedish botanist. A genus of plants of the 

family of Papiiionuceje, and of the tribe of Dalbergioe. 
Daman. Alteration of the Arabic word Ghannem, the name of an animal. 

Specific name of a mammal. 
Dakais. Genus of plants of the family of Rubiaceae. 



500 GLOSSARY. 

Daph'ne. a genus of plants of the family Daphnaceae. 

Darwi'kii. The name of Darwin latinized. Belonging or relating to Dar 
win. 

Dast'urid;e. From the Gr. dasus, thick, hairy, and oura, tail. A family of 
mammals. 

Debris. Fr. Wreck, ruins, remains. In geology the term is applied to 
large fragments, to distinguish them from detritus, or those which are 
pulverized. 

Deci^duous. From the Lat. decido, I fall off. Applied to plants whose leaves 
fall off in autumn, to distinguish them from evergreens. 

DEc^LiNATioTf of any celestial body, is the angular distance of the body, north 
or south, from the equator. 

Deixothe'rium. From the Gr. deinos, terrible, and tkereion, wild beast. A 
genus of fossil pachyderms. 

Delesse'ri^. Proper name. Tribe of plants of the family of Flori'deae. 

DEEPHi''ifus. Lat. Dolphin. A genus of aquatic mammals. 

Del^ta. The Gr. letter A. The triangular deposits, shoals or islands, at 
the mouths of rivers are called deltas. 

Del'toid. From the Gr. letter A and eidos, resemblance. Resembling the 
letter delta. " 

Denuda'tigst. From the Lat. c?mM£?o, I strip. A removal of a part of the 
land, so as to lay bare the inferior strata. 

Deoda'r. a kind of pine tree. 

DE^PosiTioisr. From the Lat. depono, I let fall. In geology the falling to the 
bottom of matters suspended or dissolved in water. 

Devoniait system. So called because it is largely developed in Devonshire, 
England. It is synonymous with the old red sand formation. It is com- 
posed at first of pudding stone, and then passes into sandstone, with 
which it alternates at different places. 

De'tineks. Lat. Detaining; that which has the power to detain. 

De'tritus. a geological term applied to deposits composed of various sub- 
stances which have been comminuted by attrition. The larger frag- 
ments are usually termed debris; those which are pulverized, as it were, 
constitute detritus. Sand is the detritus of silicious rocks. 

DiAMAGNETic. If a bar of iron be suspended between the poles of an electro- 
magnet, it will be attracted bj'- both poles on the line of force. But if a 
bar of bismuth be suspended in the same manner, it will be repelled by 
both poles, and rest at right angles to the line of force. Substances which 
are attracted by both poles of an electro-magnet are said to be magnetic^ 
and those which are repelled by both poles are termed diamagnetic. 

Dichoto'ma, "^ From the Gr. dicha, divided, and tornos, section. In zoo- 

DicHOTO^MUM, >logy this term is applied to a species of the genus Iris, the 

DiCHOTO^Mus, J body of which is bifurcate. In botany it is applied to the 
stem, branches, peduncles, leaves, hairs, styles, &c., when they are bifur- 
cated in form. 

DicoTx''EEi)oiir. From the Gr. dis, two, and Jcotuledon, seed lobe. A double 
seed lobe. 

Dicottee'doh-qus. Relating to dicotyledon; having a double seed lobe. 

Didel'phous. From the Gr. dis, double, and delphus, womb. Applied to 
opposums and other marsupial mammals. 

Didel'phis. a genus of marsupial mammals. 

Didee'phid^. a tribe of marsupial mammals. 

Digita^ta. Lat, Digitate; spread out like the fingers. 



GLOSSARY. 601 

Dixo'rjstis. From the Gr. deinos, great, terrible, and ornis, a bird. A genus 

of fossil, or extinct birds. 
Dio^Tis. From the Gr. diotos, having two ears : referring to the flower. A 

genus of plants of the family of helianthacese. 
DisLocATiosr. Displacement. In geology where strata or veins have been 

displaced from the position where first deposited or formed, they are said 

to be dislocated. 
Di'sA. A genus of plants of the family of Orchi'dese. DVsa grandiflora. 

Large-flowered Disa. 
Dio''s>rA. From the Gr. dios, divine, and osme, smell. A genus of plants of 

the family of Dios'mese. 
DiLLENrA'cE.is. Proper name. A family of plants. 
DiosjEfx. One of the names of Venus. A genus of plants of the family of 

Droseracea. Dioncea musci'pula. Venus' Fly-trap. 
Dip'tertx. From the Gr. dis, double, and pterux, a wing, in allusion to the 

two appendages of the calyx. Tonquin Bean. A genus of plants of the 

family of Leguminosae. Dip'teryx odora'ta. Sweet-scented Tonquin Bean. 
Dic'tyota. From the Gr. diduon, a net. A genus of plants of the family 

of Phy'ceoB, and tribe of dictyotese. 
Dictto'n-ema. From the Gr. diduon, a net, and nema, a filament. A genus 

of plants of the family of Phy'cese. 
Dip. In geology direction of the inclination of strata. "To take a dip," is 

to measure the degree that a stratum inclines or dips from a horizontal line. 
Dis'iNTEGRATE. From the Lat. de, privative, and integer, a whole. To se- 
parate or break up an aggregate into parts. 
Do'ioMiTE. Magnesian marble, or granular magnesian carbonate of lime. 

Named after Dolomieu. 
Dombe^'ta. In honor of Joseph Dombey. A genus of plants of the family 

of Byttneriacea : it is found in Madagascar and the Isle of Bourbon. 
Dorsige'ra. Lat. From dorsum, the back, a ridge, and gero, I carry or wear. 

A specific name. 
Dorta^nthes. From the Gr. doru, doratos, a lance, and anthesis, a flowering. 

A genus of plants of the family of Amaryllidaceae. 
Draba. a genus of plants of the family of Cruciferoa. 
DRAC^jiTA. Lat. A genus of Saurians. 
DRACjEJs^iE. Plural of Dracaena. 
Dryoba'landps. From the Gr. drus, as, an oak, balanos, an acorn, and ops, 

aspect. A genus of plants of the family of Dip' terocarpese. Dryobalanos 

camphora. The camphor tree of Sumatra. 
DzTiTA'Mic. From the Gr. dunamis, power, force. Belonging or relating to 

dynamics. 
Dyntamics. The doctrine of forces as exhibited in moving bodies which 

are at liberty to obey the impulses communicated to them. The motions 

of celestial bodies in their orbits, or of a stone falling freely through the 

air, are embraced in the study of dynamics. 
Di'dymium. a metal discovered recently by Mosander. 

Earths. Formerly chemists, believing them to be simple bodies, included 
the following substances under the name of earths : Baryta, Strontia, 
Lime, Magnesia, Alumina or clay, Silica, Glucina, Zirconia, and Yttria. 
Research has shown that all have metallic or metalloid bases. 

Echid'na. Greek name of a monster, supposed to have the body of a beau- 
tiful woman, and the tail of a serpent. A genus of mammals of the 
family of Monotrema. 



602 GLOSSARY. 

E'cHiMYs. From the Gr. echinos, spiny, andmus, a rat. A genus of mammals ; 
a sort of rat found in South America. 

EcxiPTic. In Astronomy the great circle of the heavens which the sun ap- 
pears to describe in his annual revolution. 

Edenta'ta. From the Lat. e, without, and dens, tooth: without teeth. An 
order of mammals which are destitute of teeth. 

E^DXTiis. Lat. Eatable ; that which may be eaten. 

Effi-ore'scence. The pulverulent covering formed on the surface of saline 
substances from which the atmosphere has removed the water of crystal- 
lization. When saline substances give up their water of cryslalization 
to the air, they are said to effloresce. 

Elais. '} From the Gr. elaia, the olive. A genus of plants of the family 

El^is. 5 of Palms. The Elais Guinea' ensis yields the Palm oil. 

Elaps. Gr. Name of a serpent. A genus of ophidians. 

Electkicitt. From the Gr. elektron, amber, the substance in which it was 
first observed. The property acquired by glass and resin from friction 
to attract light substances. Electricity exists in all bodies, and becomes 
manifest, at least partially, whenever the natural state of equilibrium of 
their molecules is disturbed by any cause. 

ELECTRO-MAGifETisM:. The phenomena produced when a current of electri- 
city is traversing any substance, or when electricity is in motion, magne- 
tism is at the same time developed. 

EtECTRo-MAGNET. An apparatus for exhibiting the phenomena of electro- 
magnetism, 

Elec'tricus. Lat. Electric. Belonging to, or relating to electricity. 

Ellip'tica. Lat. Elliptic. 

E'lephas. Lat. Gr. name of the elephant. A genus of mammals of the 
order of pachydemus, 

ElephantiVa. Lat. Belonging or relating to an elephant; elephantine. 

Em'brto. From the Gr. emhruon, from, bruo I bud forth. A germ at the 
early stages of development. 

E-'merald. a mineral of a beautiful green colour, much valued for orna- 
mental jewelry. It consists of silica, alumina, glucina, oxide of chromium, 
which is the colouring matler, and a trace of lime. 

E'mts. Lat. From the Gr. emus, a water tortoise. A genus of reptiles of 
the family of emydians. 

EMi'DiAifs. A family of reptiles of the order of Chelonia. 

Encri'nites. From the Gr. krinon, a lily. A genus of fossil Eclnnoderms. 
The skeleton of this animal is said to consist of not less than 26,000 sepa- 
rate pieces. 

E^ocE^jfE. From the Gr. eos, dawn, and kainos, recent. In geology a name 
for the older tertiary formation, in which the first dawn, as it were, of 
existing species, appear. 

EpACRi'nEyE. From the Gr. epi, upon, and akros,an elevated place, a hill. A 
family of plants. 

Ep'iphtte. From the Gr. epi, upon, and phutos, a plant. Applied to plants 
which grow upon other plants. 

EauiNocTiA^Lis. Lat. Equinoctial. 

EauiSE^TUivr. From the Lat equus, a horse, and seta, hair. A genus of 
plants of the family of equisitaces. 

Eauus. Lat, Ahorse. A genus of mammals. 

Er^bium. a metal, recently discovered. 

EaicA. A genus of plants of which there are 439 species. 



GLOSSARY. 503 

ERi'ocAutoy. From the Gr. erion, wool, and Jcaulon, stem or stalk. A genus 

of plants of the family of eriocauloneoe. 
Ertthhi'na. From the Gr. eruthros, red. A genus of plants of the family of 

Papilionacese. 
ERYTHnox'xLOjf. From the Gr. eruthros, red, and xulon, wood. A genus of 

plants. 
Escarpment. From the Ital. Scarpa, sharp, formed from the Lat. ca7-pere, to 

cut. The steep face often presented by the abrupt termination of strata 

where subjacent beds crop out from beneath them. 
EscuLEKTA. Lat. Esculent. 
EucALT^PTi. Lat. Plural of eucalyptus. 
Eucalt'ptus. From the Gr. eu, well, and kaluptos, covered. A genus of 

plants of the family of Myrtc'ices. 
EuPHo'nBiA. Gr. Name of a plant. A genus of plants of which there are 

300 species. 
Exce'lsa. Lat. Noble, tall, stately. 
Exco'rtica. Lat. Without bark. 
Ex'ogenous. From the Gr. ex, from, and gemomai, I grow. Applied to 

plants which grow by successive external additions to their wood. 
Extensile. Having the power to extend itself. 
ExuViiE. Lat. The sloughs or cast skins, or cast shells of animals. 

Fa'gus. Lat.. Beech. A genus of plants of the family of Araentaceae. 
Falco. Lat. Falcon. A genus of birds. Faico islandicus. The Gerfalcon. 
Family. In natural history the term is applied to an assemblage of several 

genera which resemble each other in many respects. 
Far'ina. Lat. Meal. 
Far'inha. Portu. Meal, flour. 

Farino'sa. Lat. Meally ; belonging or relating to meal. 
Fauna. All animals of all kinds peculiar to a country constitute the fauna 

of that country. 
Felts. Lat, A cat. A genus of mammals of the family of carnivdra. 

Felis irbis. The panther. 
Fenestra'lis. Lat. Belonging or relating to a window or opening. 
Fer'bium. a recently discovered metal. 
Ferns. The Alices; an order of cryptogamic plants. 
Fi'ctTs. Lat. A fig. A genus of plants of the family of Morsc'cesB. 
FicoiDE. A genus of plants of the family of Mesembry a' nthe'mece, of which 

there are about 200 species. 
FrcoiuEs. ■? The family of Mesembryanth^mese. Ficoides is applied as a 
FicoinEiE. 3 specific name. 
Flacour'tia. Proper name. A genus of plants of the family of Flacour- 

tiuceee. 
Flarel'liforme. From the Lat. flahellum, a fan, and forma, form. Fan- 
shaped. 
Flora. Lat. Name of the Goddess of Flowers. All the plants of all kinds 

belonging to a country constitute the flora of that country. 
Flo'rida. JSelonging or relating to flowers ; or relating to the State of Florida. 
Foci. Lat. Plural of focus. 
Focus. Lat. A hearth. In optics the term describes the point or space 

where the rays of light are concentrated by a lens. The apex of a cone 

of rays of light, or of heat, formed by a lens, or concave mirror. 
Folia'ceous. From the Lat. folium, a leaf. Leafy. Having the form of 

leaves. 



604 GLOSSARY. 

Footstalks. In botany the stalks of flowers, or of leaves. 

Fossil,. From the Lat.fodio, I dig. Any organic body, or the traces of any 

organic body, whether animal or vegetable, which has been buried in the 

earth by natural causes. 
Fossili'ferous. Contain fossils. 
FoRMi'ciD^. From the Lat. formica, an ant, and the Gr. eidos, resemblance. 

A family of insects of the family of Hymenoptera. 
FnoifD. Also, frons. A name applied to the leaves of palms, and of cryptd- 

gamous plants. 
Frondo'sa. Lat. Full of green leaves. 
Fra'grans. Lat. Fragrant ; odorous. 
Fra'giiis. Lat. Fragile ; easily broken.' 

FRiNG/i.tiE. Lat. fringilla, a chafinch, A family of birds, the most numer- 
ous of the group of conirostres, or thick billed birds. 
FuccA. Name of a genus of aquatic plants. 
Fuci. Lat. Plural of fucus. 

Fucus. Lat. Sea-weed. A genus of aquatic plants. 
Fuchsia. After Leonard Fuchs, a physician of the 16th century. A genus 

of plants. 
FuNCTioif. From the Lat. /wng-or, I act. The action of an organ, or system 

of organs. 
FtjKGT. Lat. Plural of fungus. 
FuxGus. Lat. A mushroom. 
Fune'retts. Lat. Funeral : belonging to a dead body. 

Ga'dtis, Lat. A codfish. 

Gallina'ceous. From the Lat. galle'na, a hen. Relating to birds of the 
order of GallinaceEe. 

Gale'ija From the Gr. galene, lead ore. A mineral composed of sulphur 
and lead: a natural sulphuret of lead. 

Gal'tabtism. From Galvani, a distinguished Italian philosopher. That 
branch of electrical science in which electricity is made manifest by the 
mediate contact of different metals. Also, the phenomena exhibited by 
living animal matter when placed between the poles or extremities of an 
apparatus for showing electricity by the mediate contact of different 
metals. 

GALyA'jyic. Belonging or relating to galvanism. 

Gangea'ticus. Lat. Gangeatic; belonging or relating to the river Ganges. 

Garde'nia. After a proper name. A genus of plants of the family of Ru- 
biacese; it contains some forty species. The Gardenia grandiflor a is the 
Cape Jasmin. 

Gau'i^et. a mineral consisting of silicates of alumina, lime, iron, and 
manganese. It occurs] imbedded in mica-slate, granite, and gneiss, and 
occasionally in limestone, chlorite-slate, serpentine, and lava. There are 
several varieties of garnet. 

Gas. From the Germ, geist, spirit. The name given to all permanently 
elastic fluids, or airs, different from the atmospheric air. 

Gaseous. Of the nature of gas. 

Genre. Fr. Genus, kind, manner, style. In painting it is applied to signify 
the representation of certain kinds of objects, as landscapes, views, 
animals, plants, flowers, scenes in common life. Pictures of genre, then, 
are pictures of a genus or kind as to subject; as landscapes, marine 
views, flower pieces, still-life, &c. 

Ge'keea. Lat. Plural of genus. 



GLOSSARY. 505 

Genus. Lat. A kindred, breed, race or family. 

GE'oioer. From the Gr. ge, the earth, and logos, discourse. That branch of 
natural history which treats of the structure of the terrestrial globe. It is 
divided into descriptive geology ; </?/namic geology, which treats of the forces 
by which the surface of the earth has been modified ; practical and econo- 
mic geology, embracing the application of geological science to mining, 
road-making, architecture, and agriculture. 

Geother'mal. From the Gr. ge, the earth, and thermos, heat, temperature. 
Relating to the temperature of the earth. 

Gera'rdia. Proper name. A genus of plants of the family of Scrophu. 
lariese. 

Germ:ina''tion. The process of the development of the seed, and the em- 
bryo which it contains. 

Get'sers. From an Icelandic word, signifying raging or roaring. Cele- 
brated spouting fountains of boiling water in Iceland. 

GiBBosA. Lat. Gibbous; having protuberances or bunches. 

Gibralta'rica. Lat. Belonging or relating to Gibraltar. 

GieAN^TEA. ^ Lat. Gigantic, huge. 

GlGAN^TEtrS. 3 

GixEADE^Nsis. Lat. Belonging or relating to Gilead. 

Gla'ciai. Belonging or relating to ice. 

Gla'ciers. Fr. Masses or beds of ice formed in h.igh mountains, derived 
from the snows or lakes frozen by the continued cold of those regions. 

Gladio'lus. a genus of plants of the family of Iri'deae< 

Glaijd. An organ formed for the purpose of secreting a peculiar fluid. 

GiAu'cous. From the Gr. glaukos, blue. Applied to the bluish and pul- 
verulent aspect which certain plants present, such as the leaves of cab- 
bages, &c. Also used to signify the bloom of the color of cabbage 
leaves, sometimes observed on polished bodies. 

Glebi'tschia. a genus of plants of the family of Leguminosse, named in 
honor of J. G. Gleditsch, a German botanist. It includes the Honey and 
Swamp locust trees among its species. 

Giobba'ria. From the Lat. globum, a ball. A genus of insects: also a 
specific name. 

GLtrci'NUM. A metal discovered in glucina in 1798 by Vauquelin. 

Gltj'ten. Lat. The viscid elastic substance which remains when wheat 
flour is wrapped in a coarse cloth, and washed under a stream of water, 
so as to carry oflfthe starch and soluble matters. It exists in many plants 
and in animals. It is the basis of glue. 

Gltce'ria. a genus of plants of the family of grami'neoe, and the tribe 
Festucaceac. 

Glx''cine. From the Gr. glukus, sweet. A genus of plants of the family of 
Papilionacese. 

Gx APHA^iiuM. From the Gr. gnaphalion, the cotton tree. A genus of plants 
of the family of Compositsje. 

Gkteiss. Germ. A rock resembling granite. It is composed chiefly of 
feldspar and mica, and is more or less slaty in its structure. Gneiss is 
used for building and flagging. 

Gold. The most valuable and longest known of the metals. 

Goobe'nia. Proper name. A genus of plants of the family of Goodeniacese. 

Gordo'nia. Proper name. A genus of plants of the family of Gordonieje. 

Granbiflora. Lat. Large-flowered. 

Grami'ne^. Lat. Grasses. A family of monocotyle'donous plants, con- 
taining about 3000 species. 

4o 



506 GLOSSARY. 

Granivorous. ■> Applied to animals which feed upon grains, especially 

Granivora. 5 to passerine birds. 

Gr^ca. Lat. Greek. 

Gra'kular. Composed of grains. 

Grakite. a rock which is a crystaline aggregate of quartz, feldspar, and 
mica. 

Granitic. Of the nature of granite. 

Greenstone. A rough variety of trap-rock, consisting chiefly of horn- 
blende. 

Grit, a coarse-grained sandstone. 

Guiiandi'na. a proper name. A genus of plants of the family of Legu- 
minosae. Guilandina Bonduc, the oval-leaved Nicker-tree. 

Guineaen'sis. Lat. Belonging or relating to Guinea. 

Gum. a vegetable product, which is tasteless and inodorous, and is distin- 
guished by being soluble in water, and insoluble in alchol. Gum arable, 
for example. 

Gtmno'tus. From the Gr. gumnos, naked, and wo^os, back. A genus of fishes. 

GxPsuM. Native sulphate of lime. It is converted into plaster of Paris by 
heat. 

Gyro'phora. From the Gr, guros, a circle, and pherd, I give. A genus of 
cryptogamous plants. 

Habitat. Lat. He inhabits. Used to designate the place in which ani- 
mals and plants are naturally found. 
Halio'tis. From the Gr. als, the sea, and ous, the ear. A genus of mol- 

lusks. 
Ha^icyon. From the Gr. alkuo'n, a king-fisher. A genus of birds. 
Helia'nthus. From the Gr. elios, the sun, and anthos, flower; sunflower. 
Heli^acai. From the Gr. elios, the sun. Relating to the sun. When a 

star rises so as to be visible in morning twilight before the appearance of 

the sun, it is said to rise heliacally. 
Hep'taphyleum. From the Gr. e/?f a, seven, and ^/iwilorz, a leaf. Seven-leaved. 

A specific name. 
Herba'ceous. In botany, Herb-like; that perishes every year. An annual 

stem. Not woody. 
Herbito'ra. Lat. Herbivorous. 

Herbito'rous. From the Lat. herba, a plant, and vorare, to eat. Plant eat- 
ing. Applied to animals which feed chiefly or exclusively on plants or 

herbs. 
Heritie'ra. Proper name. A genus of plants of the family of Stercu- 

liaceas. 
Hibernate. From the Lat. hibernare, to winter. Animals which retire and 

sleep throughout the winter, are said to hibernate. 
HiBi'scus. A genus of plants of the family of Malvaceae. 
HiEROcH^LOA. From the Gr. ieros, sacred, and chloa, herb. A genus of 

plants of the family of Grami'nese. 
Hippopo'tamus. From the Gr. ippos, a horse, and potamos, river. River 

Horse. A genus of mammals. 
Hirsu'ta. Lat. Hirsute ; covered with soft hairs. 
Hol'cus. a genus of plants of the family Grami'nese. 
HopEA, or HoppEA. Proper name. A genus of plants. 
Ho'rrida. Lat. Horrid ; spiny. 
Hc'rart. From the Lat. ho7-a, an hour. The motion of a celestial body, or 

the space it moves through in an hour, is termed its horary motion. 



GLOSSARY. 507 

HonsE-sHOE MAGNET. A magnet in form of a horse-shoe. 

Humi'ria. a genus of plants of the family of humoriacese. They inhabit 
tropical America. 

Hydran'gea. From the Gr. uridr, water, and aggos, a vessel. A genus 
of plants of the family of Saxifragacese, and tribe of Hydrangeea3. 

Hydrau'lic. From the Gr. udor, water, and aulos, a pipe. Relating to 
liquids in motion. Hydraulics is that branch of natural philosophy or 
physics which treats of the force of water and other liquids in motion. 

HrDRosTA^Tic. From the Gr. udor, water, and stad,- I stand. Relating 
to water in a state of rest. Hydrostatics is the science which treats of 
the equilibrium and pressure of water and other liquids. 

Ht'drogex. From the Gr. udor, water, and gennaein, to generate. A 
colorless, tasteless, inodorous gas, one part of which, by weight, com- 
bined with eight parts of oxygen forms water; — combined with sulphur it 
constitutes sulphuretted Hydrogen; — and with carbon, carburetted Hydro- 
gen, the gas used for illumination. 

Htdrogeton. a synonym of Ouviraudra. A genus of aquatic plants. 

Hyla. From the Gr. ule, wood, a tree. A tree frog. 

Hyme^t^'a. a genus of plants of the family of Papilionacese. A resinous 
tree of tropical America. 

Hymexo^pter^. From the Gr. umen, a membrane, and p/e?*on, wing. Syste- 
matic name of a class of insects, characterized by membranous wings. 

Hy'rax. From the Gr. wax, a shrew mouse. A genus of mammals. 

Ianthina. See Janthina. 

Fbex. Lat. A wild goat. A genus of mammals. 

I'bis. a genus of birds. 

Igneous rocks. Are those rocks whose structure is attributable to the in- 
fluence of heat, such as granite and basalt. They are distinct from 
stratified rocks, or those formed by deposits from water. 

Fgtjana. a reptile of the lizard tribe. 

Igua'nian. Applied to Saurians which resemble the iguana. 

iGuA^NonoN. From iguana, and the Gr. odous, tooth. A genus of extinct or 
fossil reptiles of gigantic size discovered in the south of England. 

Flex. Lat. The Holly. 

Ili'cis. Lat, Of the Holly ; belonging or relating to the holly. 

Illi'cium. From i//iao to attract; from its agreeable perfume. The anni- 
seed tree. A genus of plants of the family of Magnoliaceae. 

Im'bricate. Laid one over another like tiles. 

Inconspicuus. Lat. Not conspicuous or remarkable. 

Incisor. From the Lat. incido I cut. Applied to those teeth which occupy 
the anterior or centre of the upper and lower jaws, because they are used 
for cutting the food. 

Inca. Designation of the aboriginal Peruvian princes; used as a specific 
name. Also, a genus of insects. 

Indica — Indicus. Lat. Indian : Belonging or relating to India. 

Indica'tor. Lat. Indicator; one who points out. A genus of birds. 

Infuso'uia. Animals of infusions ; microscopic animalcules. 

Infuso'rial. Belonging or relating to the Infusoria. 

Inorganic. Without organs or organization. 

Insect. From the Lat. in, into, seco, I cut. Applied to animals whose 
bodies are cut, as it were, into three parts — head, thorax, and abdomen. 

Irid'e^. a family of monocotyMdonous plants. 



508 GLOSSARY. 

Iridium. From the Lat. iris, the rainbow. A grey, brittle, very infusible 
metal, which is found associated with the ores of platinum. 

IsATis. From the Gr. isazo, I render equal. Woad. A genus of plants of 
the family of Gruciferse. Also the name of a species of dog. 

Isla'ndicus. Lat. Belonging or relating to Iceland. 

Iso^GEo^THERMAt. From the Gr. isos, equal, ge, the earth, and thermoSy heat. 
Applied to lines which are supposed to pass through all parts of the 
earth's structure on the surface where the mean heat is the same. 

Isothe'umal. From the Gr. isos, equal, and thermos, heat. Isothermal lines 
are supposed to pass through all places where the mean temperature of 
the air is the same. 

IsoTHEEiAL. Fiom the Gr. isos, equal, and thereios, having the heat of sum- 
mer. Isotherial lines are supposed to be drawn through all places hav- 
ing the same mean summer temperature. 

IsocHi^MENAt, From the Gr. isos, equal, and cheima, winter. Isochimenal 
lines pass through all places where the mean winter temperature is the 
same. ^ 

IxiA. A genus of plants of the family of Iridese. 

Jauthi^jsta. From the Gr. ianthinos, violet. A genus of mollusks. 

Japo'nica — .Tapo^nicus. Belonging or relating to Japan. 

Jasper. A silicious mineral of various colors; sometimes spotted, banded 

or variegated. It takes a fine polish. 
Jekbo'a. a genus of mammals of the family of Rodents, or gnawers. 
Jura'ssic. Belonging or relating to the Jura mountains. Applied to a sys- 
^ tern of rocks of the middle secondary geological period. Also termed 

oolitic. 

Ka'lmia. a genus of plants of the family of Ericaceae. 
Ker'ria. Proper name. A genus of plants of the family of Rosaceae. 
Ke'^frva. Synonyne of Pandanus. 

KiWiA. Proper name. A genus of plants ofjthe family of Joncacese, 
found in New Holland. Kingia australis; the grass tree. 

Labia't^e. From the Lat. labium, lip ; in allusion to the form of the corolla. 

A family of dicotyledonous plants. 
Lago'pus. From the Gr. lagds, a hare, and pons, foot : hare-footed. A genus 

of birds of the order Gallinacese- 
Lam'antik". The manatus. A genus of mammals of the order of Cetacea. 
Lamijs-a'ria. a genus of aquatic plants of the family of Phy'cese. 
Lamprato''r]vi3. a genus of birds. Lampratornis super ba. A kind of raven, 
Laita^'ta. Lat. Woolly. 

Laitceola'tus. Lat. Lanceolate ; lance-shaped. 
Landslip, or Landslide. In geology, the removal of a portion of land down 

an inclined surface, from its attachment being loosened by the action of 

water beneath, or by an earthquake. 
Lanta'stium. a metal discovered in 1840 by Mosander. 
Lapis lazuli. A mineral belonging to the aluminous silicates, of an azure 

blue colour. 
Laureo^la. Specific name of a plant. 

Laurea^ r* S From /awms, laurel, one of the genera. A family of plants. 



GLOSSARY. 509 

Latent heat. Heat not indicated by the thermometer, upon which the 

liquid and aeriform conditions of bodies depend, and which becomes 

sensible during the conversion of vapour into liquids, and of liquids into 

solids. 
La'uva. Lat. A mask. The first state of an insect after leaving the egg. 
La'^rt^. Lat. Plural of larva. 
LaVa. In geology, substances which flow in a melted state from a volcano. 

Lavas vary in consistence and texture. 
Legumino's^. From the Lat, legumen,3i bean. A family of plants. 
Legu'minocs. Belonging or relating to the Legumjnosese. 
Leoni'na. Belonging or relating to a lion. 
Lepoui'n-a. Lat. Belonging or relating to a hare. 
Lepido^ptera. From the Gr. lepis, a scale, and pteron, a wing, scaly wings. 

An order of insects characterized by scaly wings. 
Lesso'nia. Proper name. A genus of plants ; also a genus of birds. 
LEucADE'sTDROjiT. From the Gr. leukos, white, and dendron, tree. A genus of 

plants of the family of Proteaceae. 
Lias. Provincial corruption of the word layers. In geology, a division of 

the secondary formation. It is also called the Liassic, Jurassic, and Oolitic 

system of rocks. 
Li'cHENs. An order of crypt6gamous plants. The3Mnclude various mosses. 
Liha'ceous. Belonging or relating to the lily. 
Lilia'ce^. a family of plants. 
Llanos. Span. Planes. 

Limo'nia. a genus of plants of the family of Aurantiaceae. 
Limb. In botany, the spreading part or border of a leaf or petal. In astro- 
nomy, the outermost edge of the sun or moon. 
Li'riode'ndroiv. From the Gr. leirion, a lily, and dendron, a tree. The tulip 

tree. A genus of plants of the family of Magnoliacess. 
Li^TuiuM. A metal. 

Lu'asa. a genus of plants of the family of Loasaceag. 
Lobe. A term applied in botany to the more or less profound divisions of 

a leaf, corolla, or other part of a plant. 
LoBELiA^cE^. In honor of Lobel, a botanist. A family of dicotyle'donous 

plants. 
LoNGiFRONs. Lat. Having a long front or forehead. 
Lophobra'nches. From the Gr. li/phos, a tuft, or crest, and hranchia, gills. 

An order of fishes. 
Lophopho'rus. From the Gr. Jophos, a tuft, and jo/ioros, bearer. A genus of 

birds of the order Gallinacese. 
Lora'nthus. From the Gr. l6ron, a leather strap, and anihos, flower. Loranth. 

A genus of plants of the family of Loranthacese. 
Lo'tus. a genus of plants of the family of Leguminosae. 
LoxiA. A genus of birds. 
Ld'teum. Lat. Yellow ; dirty : made of clay. A specific name. 

Macroce'phalus. From the Gr. makros, large, and kephale, head. A genus 

of insects. The specific name of a mammal. 
Macroct'stis. From the Gr. makros, large, and kuslis, bladder. A genus of 

aquatic plants of the family of Phyceae. Gigantic sea-weeds found in 

the southern hemisphere, 
Macrou'kous. From the Gr. makros, great, and ottra, tail. Having a long 

or large tail. 

43* 



510 GLOSSARY. 

Magnet. Loadstone is the natural magnet, which has the property of at- 
tracting iron. Artificial magnets are prepared so as to possess the pecu- 
liar attractive properties of the loadstone. 

Mag'netism. The science which investigates the phenomena presented by- 
natural and artificial magnets, and the laws by which they are connected. 

Magne'sium. a silvery white metal obtained from magnesia. 

Magne'sian. Containing magnesia. 

Magno'lta. Name of Magnol, a French botanist. A genus of plants of 
the family of Magnoliacese. 

Ma^'xachite. a mineral; native green carbonate of copper. 

Mal'iotus. a genus of fishes of the family of Salmones. A genus of 
plants of the family of Enphorbiaceffi. A synonyme of the genus Rottlera. 

Malu'rus. a genus of passerine birds. 

Mam'mal. Any animal that suckles its young. 

Mamma'eia. From the Lat. mamma, a breast. The name of the class of 
mammals or animals which suckle their young. 

Mammi'fer^. Same as mammalia. 

Mana'ti. Lat. Plural of raanatus. 

Mana'tus. a genus of mammals. The Lamantin. 

Mangaste'se. a metal. 

Mabiti'ma. Lat. Maritime ; relating to the sea. 

Marl. Argillaceous carbonate of lime. There are several varieties of 
marl. 

Marsu'piae. From the Lat. marsupium, a pouch. Any animal having a 
peculiar pouch in front or on the abdomen. 

Mas'todok. From the Gr. mastos, a nipple, and odous, a tooth. A genus of 
extinct mammals allied to the elephant. ' 

Ma'trix. In geology, the stony substance or bed in which metallic ores 
and crystaline minerals are embedded. The gangue. 

Mauri'tia. Lat. B.elonging to the island of Maritius. 

Mauro'rum. Lat. Of the Moors. 

Maximus. "^ 

Maxima. C Lat. The greatest. 

Maximum. 3 

Mei)u''sa. a genus of marine animals of the class Acalepha. 

Megathe'rium. From the Gr. megas, great, and therion, beast. Name of a 
fossil quadruped. 

Melaeed''ca. From the Gr. melas, black, and hiikos, white. A genus of 
plants of the family of Myrtacece. 

Mela'stoma. From the Gr. melas, black, and stoma, opening. A genus of 
plants of the family of Melastomacese. 

Mel'ia. a genus of plants of the family of Meliacese. 

Meloeo'rmis. From the Lat. wefo, a melon, and /orwa, shape. Melon-shaped. 

Menopoma, From the Gr. menos, strong, and poma, cover. A genus of 
reptiles of the family of Salamanders. Specific name of a batrachian. 

Menura. a genus of passerine birds. The Menura superba, the lyre-bird. 

Mercury. Quicksilver. A metal which is liquid at the ordinary tempe- 
rature. 

Mese^mertak'themum. From the Gr. mesembria, the mid-day, and anthemum, 
flowering, because the flowers usually expand at that time. The fig 
marygold. A genus of plants of the family of Ficoides. 

Me'sa. Span. A table. 

Mespilus. From the Gr. mesos, half, and pile, bullet, the fruit resembling 
ahalfbail. The medlar. A genus of plants of the family of Rosacese. 



GLOSSARY. 511 

Mkt'alloid. Literally, resembllnc^ metal. The metals obtained from the 

alkalis and earths are called metalloids. 
Metallx'ferous. Containing metal, or metals. 
Metamou^phic. From the Gr. meta, indicating change, and morphe, form. 

Metamorphic rocks are those which are evidently of mechanical origin, 

but owing to the presumed action of heat, ha^e undergone change. Altered 

rocks. 
Metrosi'deros. From the Gr. meti-a, heart of a tree, and sideron, iron, in 

allusion to the hardness of its wood. A genus of plants of the family of 

Myrtacese. 
Metur. a species of wild corn which grows in Iceland. 
Mia'sma. ■> From the Gr. miaind, I contaminate. Applied to any ema- 
Mia'smata. 5 nation from animal or vegetable substances, or from the earth, 

which may prejudicially influence the health of those persons who may 

be exposed to it. 
Mi'cA. From the Lat. wico, I shine. A mineral, generally found in thin 

elastic laminae, soft, smooth, and of various colors and degrees of trans- 
parency. It is one of the constituents of granite. 
Mica-schist. Germ, (Gr. schistos, slaty, easily split.) Mica-slate. A 

lamellar rock composed of quartz, ordinarily grayish, and a great quan- 
tity of brilliant lamellse of mica arranged in scales, or extended leaves. 
Mi'das. Name of a genus of monkeys ; also, of a genus of reptiles. 
MiGRATo^RiA. Lat. Migrating. 
Milungto^'nia. Proper name. A genus of plants of the family of Bigno- 

niace*. 
Millepo'ra. From mil, a thousand, and pori, holes. A genus of stony 

polyps, or corallineF. 
MiMo'sA. From the Lat. mimus, a comedian, in allusion to its numerous 

varieties. A genus, and a tribe of plants. 
Mi'ocENE. From the Gr. meiCm, less, and kainos, recent. In geology a name 

of a group of rocks of the tertiary period. 
Mi'nimum. Lat. The least. 
Mira''ge. Fr. A kind of natural optical illusion, arising from the unequal 

refraction of the lower strata of the atmosphere. The illusive appearance 

of water in deserts is explained in this manner. 
Misodendron. a genus of plants of the family of Loranthacese. 
Mite^ela. a genus of plants of the family of Saxafragacese. 
MoEEusK. From the Lat. mollis, soft. Applied to certain soft animals 

which inhabit shells, as oysters. 
MoLEu'scA. A branch of the animal kingdom. 
MoLLu'scous. Belonging or relating to mollusks. 
Moltb'dencm. A white, brittle metal. 
MojfocoTYLE'DOiV. From the Gr. monos, single, and koluledon, seed-lobe. A 

single seed-lobe. 
Moxocottle'donous. Relating to monocotyledon. 

MoNo'cEROs, From the Gr. monos, single, and keras, horn. Having one horn 
Mo'nodon. From the Gr. monos, single, and oc/oms, tooth. Name of a genus 

of aquatic mammals. The Narwhal. 
Mone'ta. Lat. Belonging or relating to money. 
Moni'lifgrm. From the Lat. monile, a necklace. In form of a string of 

beads, necklace-like. 
Mo'nitor. a genus of Saurian reptiles. 
Monospe'uma. From the Gr. monos, single, sperma, seed. One-seeded. A 

specific name. 



512 GLOSSARY. 

Mon'tia. a genus of plants of the family of PorliilaceaB. 

Moiti'sTDA. A genas of plants of the family of Rabiaceae. 

MoRAijs'ES. Longitudinal deposits of stony detritus found at the bases, and 

along the edges of all the great glaciers. 
Mo'rus. Mulberry. A genus of plants of the family of Urti'cea3. 
MosASAu^Rus. From Meuse, name of a river, and the Gr. sauros, a lizard. A 

genus of fossil reptiles. 
Mos'cHus. From the Gr, mosr/;os, musk. A genus of mammals. 
Moschi'feuus. Laf. Musk bearing; containing musk. 
MossF.s. Cryiogamous parasites of the family of Lycopodeucss. 
Mu''ciLAGE. A mixture of gum and water. 
MuRAi. Belonging or relating to a wall, 

MusA. The banana. A genus of plants of the family of Musuceae. 
MuscHELKALK, German. Shell limestone. 
Musci''puLA. Lat. A fly trap or mouse trap. 
Musicus. Lat. Relating to music ; musical. 
MrcETus, Name of a genus of monkeys. 
Myopo'TAMTJs. From the Gr. mus, a rat, and polamos, a river. A genus of 

gnawing mammals. 
Myri'stica. a genus of plants of the family of Myrista'cese ; Mystri'iira 

moschata, the nutmeg tree. 
Myrtus. Myrtle. A genus of plants of the family of Myrta'cea;. 

Nana, From the Gr. nanos, a dwarf. A specific name. 

Na'ptha. a limpid bitumen, 

Narci'ssus. a genus of plants of the family of Amarylli'dese. 

Na'trium. a metal. 

Natrof. a subcarbonate of soda. 

Nectary. That part of a flower which produces honey. 

Nelum'biuw, a genus of plants of the family of Nymphee'cese. Sacred 

Bean. 
Nkstor. An extinct bird. 
Neuro'ptera. From the Gr. neuron, a nerve, and pteron, wing. An order 

of insects. 
New hed sAynsTONE. In geology, a system of rocks of the secondary for- 
mation. 
Nickel. A white metal. It is the basis of " German Silver." 
NiCxRA. Lat. Black. 
Nimbus. A rain cloud, 
Ni'tida. Jjat, Neat, clean, bright. 
Njtroge]^'. a simple, permanently elastic fluid or gas, which constitutes 

four-filths of the atmosphere, and is the basis of nitric acid. 
Niva'lis. Lat. Snowy. 
Nox-coNBucTOR. Applied to substances which do not possess the property 

of transmitting electricity, or heat. 
NoTACANTHus. Froffl the Gr. notos, back, and akantha, a spine. A genus 

of fishes. 
NoTOTHERiuM. A fossil genus of marsupial mammals. 
NriTORNis. An extinct bird. 
Nummula'kia. From the Latin nummus, a coin. A family of MoUusks. 

Nummulites. 
Nymph^'a. a genus of plants of the family of Nymphsa'cese. 
NrssA. From the Gr. misHo, I prick. A genus of plants. 



GLOSSARY. 513 

Obsi'dian. a glassy lava. Volcanic glass. 

Ocean'ica. Lat. Relating to the ocean. 

Oeno'thera. From the Gr. oino.f, wine, and thero, I hunt. A genus of 
plants of the family of Oenothera'ceae. Synonym of onagrariae. 

Odoba'ta. Lat. Odorous. 

Odoratissi'ma. Lat. Very, or most odorous. 

Odori''fera. Lat. Odoriferous. 

O'lea. Lat. Olive. A genus of plants of the family of Olea'ceag. 

Old red sandstone. A system of rocks of the secondary formation. 

O'oiiTE. From the Greek oon, an egg, and lithos, stone: A granular variety 
of carbonate of lime, frequently called roestone. 

O'pAL. A brittle mineral, characterized by its iridescent reflection of light. 
It consists of silica with about ten per cent, of water. 

O'pALEs'cENT. Resembling opal. 

Ophi'dian. From the Gr. ophis, a serpent; applied to reptiles of the order of 
Ophidia. 

Ophice'phalus. From the Gr. ophis, serpent, and hephale, head. Serpent- 
head. A genus of acanthoptery'gian, or bony-finned fishes. 

Or'chis. a genus of plants of the family of Orchid^ese, named from most 
of the species being marked by two tubercles. 

Orceid'eous. Relating to the genus orchis. 

Organ. From the Gr. organon, an instrument. Part of an organized being, 
destined to exercise some particular function ; for example, the ears are 
the organs of hearing, the muscles are the organs of motion. 

Orga'nic. Relating to an organ. Organic remains, are the fossil remains 
of organized beings. 

Organiza'tion. The mode or manner of structure of an organized being. 

Organized. Composed of organs; having a mode of structure. 

Orienta'lis. ; ^^^^ Eastern. Belonging to the East. 

Orienta iE. \ & & 

Ornithobtn'chus. From the Gr. ornis, ornithos, a bird, and rugchos, a beak. 
A genus of mammals, having the beak of a duck. 

Or'ttgis. From the Gr. oriwa:, a quail. A genus of birds. 

Os'miujMt. From the Gr. osme, odour. A metal discovered in 1803, by 
Tennant. 

Oscilla'tion. The act of moving backwards and forwards like a pen- 
dulum. 

Ota'ria. From the Gr. dtarion, a small car. A genus of amphibious mam- 
mals, of the tribe of seals. 

Out crop. In geology, the emergence of a rock in place, at the surface. 

O'vART. In botany, that part of a flower in which the young seeds are con- 
tained. 

Oxa'iis. a genus of plants of the family of Oxalidese. 

Oxle'ta. a genus of plants of the family of Cedrela'ceae. 

Oxygen. The vivifying gas which constitutes about one-fifth of the atmo- 
sphere, the presence of which is essential to life. 

Ozo'ne, From the Gr. oz6, I smell of something. The odorous matter 
perceived when electricity passes from pointed bodies into the air. 

Pachtder'mata. From the Gr. pachus, thick, and derma, skin. An order of 

mammals — Pachyderms. 
Padi'na. Same as Zonaria, a beautiful marine plant. Padina pavonia, ox 

'Aona'ria pavonia. Turkey feather. 



514 GLOSSARY. 

Palap^teryx. From the Gr. palaios, ancient, and apteryx, (formed from 
the Gr. a, privative, and pleron, win^, wingless. Name of a genus of 
fossil birds, discovered recently in New Zealand. 

Paljbothe'rium. From the Gr. palaios, ancient, and therion, beast. A fos- 
sil genus of pachyder'matous mammals. 

Pal:eonto^losy. From the Gr. palaios, ancient, and on, a being or creature, 
and logos, discourse. That branch of zoological science which treats of 
fossil organic remains. 

Pal;e'ozotc. From the Gv. palaios, ancient, and zoe, life. Relating to an- 
cient life; belonging or relating to fossils. 

Palma rea'l. Spanish. Royal Palm. 

Palla'dittm. a white, hard, very maleable and ductile metal, which is sus- 
ceptible of a fine polish. It is more difficult to melt than gold. 

Palmel'la. a genus of plants of the family of Confervaceae. Palmella 
nivalis, a plant of the snowy regions, which gives color to the snow amidst 
which it grows. Protococcus is the red snow plant. 

Paxda^jttjs. From the Malay name of the tree, pandang. Screw-pine. A 
genus of plants, of the family of Pandancse. Pandanus candelabrum. 
Candlestick screw-pine. 

Panda'na. Relating lo, or resembling the Screw-pines. 

Pa'nicum. Panic-grass. A genus of plants of the family of Graminese. 
Panicum miliaceum, millet, a grain used for feeding poultry in England. 

Papa. Spanish. Pope. Specific name of a vulture. 

Papy^rus. a genus of plants of the family of Oypera'cegg. The Papyrus 
anliquorum yields the substance used as paper by the ancient Egyptians. 

Papyri'fera. From papyrus, a sort of paper, and /ero, I bear. Paper-bearing. 

Parhelia. Plural of parhelion. 

Parhelton". From the Gr. para, for, e/io5, the sun, A mock sun. A meteor 
which consists in the simultaneous appearance of several suns, "fan- 
tastic images of the true one." 

Paradisa''ica. Lat. Belonging or relating to Paradise. A specific name. 

Partva'ssos. a genus of lepidopterous insects of the tribe of Parna'ssidse. 
ASS EHiNEs. i From the Lat. Passer, a sparrow, name of a varied 

ASS EREb. > ^^^ extensive order of birds, not easily characterized. 

r ASSERINE BIRDS. ^ 'J 

Passiflora. Abbreviation ofjlos, flower, and passionis, of the passion. Pas- 
sion-flower, so called from a supposed resemblance between its floral 
organs, and the instruments of the Passion of our Saviour. An extensive 
and beautiful genus of plants. 

Patago'nica. Lat. Relating to Patagonia. Specific name of a penguin. 

Pavo'jvia. Formed from the Latin, paw, a peacock. A specific name. 

Peat. The natural accumulation of vegetable matter on the surface of 
lands not in a state of cultivation ; always moist to a greater or less de- 
gree, varying, according to the kind of plants to the decay of which the 
formation of peat is due. 

Pelo'pium. a metal discovered by Prof. H. Rose. 

Peeargo'nium. From the Gr. ;?f/argos, a stork. Stork's bill. A genus of 
plants of the family of Geraniices, 

Pela'sgic. After a mythological name of Jupiter. 

Pen''dulum. From the Lat. pendo, I hang. A weight suspended at the end 
of a rod, so that it may vibrate from side to side in a plane, is called a 
pendulum. 

Pennise'tum. From the Lat. penna, a feather or pen, and seta, a bristle. 
A genus of plants of the family of Grami^neae. 



GLOSSARY. 515 

Pep'lis. Gr. Water-purslane. A genus of plants of the family of Salica- 
rire. 

Per'mian. After the ancient kingdom of Permia. A name applied by Mr. 
Murchison to a system of rocks, consisting of an extensive group of fossi- 
liferous strata, intermediate, in their geological position, between the Car- 
boniferous and Triassic systems, the latter being the upper portion of the 
New Red Sandstone formation. 

PjKRTURBATioiir. lu astronomy, the deviation of a celestial body from the 
elliptic orbit which it would describe, if acted upon by no other attractive 
force than that of the sun, or central body about which it revolves. 

Pe'tai. From the Gr. petalon, a leaf. A part of the corolla of a flower ana- 
logous to a leaf. 

Petro'ieum. From the Gr. petros, a rock, and the Lat. oleum, oil. Rock-oil, 
often called Barbadoes tar. A brown, liquid bitumen, found in the West 
Indies, Europe, &c. 

Phaco''ch^'re. Fr. > From the Gr. phake, a wart, and choiros, a hog. A 

PHAco'cH^'Rus.Lat. 3 genus of mammals of the order of pachydermata; 
allied to the hogs. 

Phaea'nger. From the Gr.jaAa/agor, a phalanx. A genus of marsupial or 
pouch-bearing mammals. 

Phakeroga'mta. From the Gr. phaneros, evident, and gamos, marriage. 
Phanerogamous plants. Applied to plants having distinct flowers. 

Phi'lEDON. > tvt r r -u- j 

-D / i- Name of a genus of birds. 

Phle'um. Cat's tail grass. A genus of plants of the family of Grami'neae. 

Phlox. Gr. Flame. A genus of beautiful plants of the family of Pole- 
moniacese. 

Pho'cje. Lat. Plural of phoca. 

Pho'ca. Lat. A seal. A genus of aquatic mammals, embracing the com- 
mon seal or Phoca vitulina ; the Harp seal or P. oceanica ; the Hare-tailed 
seal or P. lagura ,- the sea-lion ; sea-wolf; sea-elephant ; sea-cow ; «fec., &c. 

Pho'nolite. From the Gr. phoned, I resound, and lUhos, a stone. Clink- 
stone. A kind of compact basalt which is sonorous when struck. 

Phor'mi0m. From the Gr. phormos, a basket. Flax-lilly. A genus of plants 
of the family of Asphodelese. Phormium ienax, Iris-leaved flax-lilly of 
New Zealand. 

Phos''phorus. From the Gr. phos, light, and pheru, I bear. A simple sub- 
stance which is highly inflammable. 

Phospho'ric acid, a compound of phosphorus and oxygen, having the 
properties of acids. 

Phos'phates. Compounds of phosphoric acid with salifiable bases, as soda, 
are termed phosphates ; Phosphate of soda, for example. 

Phosphore''scexce. Emission of light from substances at common tempe- 
ratures, or below a red heat. 

Phosphorescent. Having the property of emitting light without sensible 
heat. 

Physa'lia. i From the Gr.phuse, a vesicle. A genus of animals of the 

Phtsa'x-is. ^ family of Acalepha. The Portuguese man-of-war belongs to 
this genus. 

Phtsa'lis. a genus of plants of the family of Solanaceae. PhysaUs edulis, 
the Cape gooseberry. 

Phtse'ter. a blower. Name of a genus of mammals of the family of 
Ceta'cea. 



516 GLOSSARY. 

Pime'jtto. Allspice; Jamaica pepper. 

Piiins-ATE. From the Lat. pinnatus, feathered. Having leaflets arranged 
along each side of a common petiole, like the feather of a quill. 

PiirifATi'FiDA. Lat. Pinnatifid. A leaf is so called when it is divided 
into lobes from the margin nearly to the midrif. 

PiNus. Lat. A pine-tree. A genus of plants of the family of Conifers. 

. Pinus abies. The Norway Spruce. Pinus canariensis. The Canary 

pine. Pinus cembra. The Riga balsam tree; the Cembran or Siberian 

pine. Pinus excelsa. The lofty or Nepal pine. Pinus maritima* The 

maritime pine. Pinus pinea. The Stone pine. 

PiPiENs. Lat. Peeping like a chicken. 

PiPA. A genus of batrachian reptiles. A kind of toad. 

Plat'ina. > The diminutive of the Spanish joZa^a, silver. A metal of a 

Plat'inum. ( steel gray colour, approaching to the white colour of silver, 
to which resemblance it owes its name. It was found in Choco, one of 
the provinces of Columbia, and brought to Europe in 1741, by Don An- 
tonio de Ulloa. 

Plei'ocene. ) From the Gr. pleion, more, and kainos, recent. A term ap- 

Px,i''ocE3fE. ( plied by geologists to the newer tertiary formation, because 
there is found fossilized in it a greater number of existing than of extinct 
species. 

Plumb-line. 7 From the Lat. /)Zwm5ttm, lead. An instrument, consisting 

Plummet. 5 o^ ^^ string with a weight, usually of lead, attached to a 
straight staff, for the purpose of ascertaining the direction of gravitation, 
or the perpendicular to the horizon. 

Pluto'nic rocks. Unstratified crystaline rocks, probably formed at great 
depths beneath the surface by igneous fusion. Volcanic rocks are formed 
near the surface. 

PoDocA^Rrus. From the Gr. pous, podos, the foot, and karpos, fruit. A genus 
of plants of the family of Coniferce. 

Polarized light. Light so modified as to possess poles, or sides, having 
opposite properties. 

PoLARizA'Tio.>f. Light, by reflexion, by passing through crystals possess- 
ing the power of double refraction, becomes modified, so that it does not 
present the same phenomena of transmission and reflection, as light 
which had not been polarized. 

Polyg'onum. From the Gr. polus, many, and gonu, a knee or joint. A genus 
of plants of the family of Polygona'ceoe. Polygonum wtripamm, Alpine 
Bistort. 

Poltmo'rpha. Lat. From the Gr. polus, many, and morphe, form. Many- 
shaped. A specific name. 

Po'ltpi. Lat. Plural of polypus. 

PoLTPLE'cTRojf. Name of a genus of bird?. 

Pol'ypps. From the Gr. polus, many, and pous, foot. A genus of radiate 
animals. 

Pon'tica. From pontus, the sea. Belonging or relating to the sea. 

PoNTOp'piDA^NA. Synonym of Couroupita. A genus of plants of the family 
of Myrtacese, Lecythidese. A large tree of Guiana. 

PoNTo'pHiDAN. From the Lat. pontus, the sea, and the Gr. opkis^ a serpent. 
The sea serpent. 

PoRTULACA^RiA. A genus of plants of the family of Portula^cese. The Pur- 
slane-tree. Portulaca'ria afra. The African purslane-tree. 

PoRf hyri'tic. Of the nature of porphyry. 



GLOSSARY. 517 

PoRPHTRT From the Gr. porphicra, purple. Originally applied to a red rock 
found in Egypt. A compact feldspathic rock containing disseminated 
crystals of feldspar, the latter when polished forming small angular spots, 
of a light color, thickly sprinkled over the surface. The rock is of va- 
rious colors, dark green, red, blue, black, &c. 
Portland bed. A name given by geologists to the superior division of the 
upper oolite or lias system. The "Portland stone" is a kind of lime- 
stone found in the south of England, and more particularly in the Isle of 
Portland. In this series of strata is a silicious sand known as the " Port- 
land Sand." 
PoTAs'siTjM. A metal discovered in potash by Sir H. Davy in 1807. 
Pot enti'lia. A genus of plants of the family of Rosacece. Cinquefoil. 

Potentilla tridenta' ta. Trifid-leaved cinquefoil. 
Pre'hensile. From the Lat. prehendere, to lay hold of. Having the faculty 
to lay hold of. Applied to the tails of those monkeys, for example, which 
have the power to suspend themselves by the tail. 
Preda'ceoxjs. Living on prey. 

Primary formation. A terra applied by geologists to designate the differ- 
ent rocks which were formed prior to the creation of plants and animals. 
Primigenius. Lat. Original ; first of its kind. 
Pri'mum mo'bilb. That which first imparts motion. 
Prim^ula. Lat. A primrose. A genus of plants of the family of primu- 

luceae. Primula farino'sa, the Bird's-eye primrose. 
Prism. A solid bounded by three planes, two of which are equal. 
Prismatic. Belonging or relating to a prism. 
Proeosci'dian. From the Gr. probosMs, a proboscis or trunk. Applied to 

mammals of the family which includes the elephant. 
Procella'ria. From the Lat. procella, a tempest at sea. A genus of birds 

of the family of Palmipedes. 
Proh'fera. Formed from proles, a race or stock, and /ero, I bear Prolific 
Pro'tea a genus of plants of the family of Proteaceae. Protea cyaneroides] 

Artichoke-flowered protea. 
Pro'teus. a genus of reptiles. 

Pteroca'rpus. From the Gr. pteron, a wing, and karpos, frmi. The pods 
have membranous wings. A genus of plants of the family of Legumin6s2e 
Pterocarpus sanialinus. The red saunders tree. 
Pte'ris. Gr. Name of Fern. A genus of crypt6gamous plants. Brake. 

P tens esculent a. Edible fern. 
Pteropus. From the Gr. pteron, wing, and pous, foot. A genus of mammals 

of the tribe of bats, termed Roussettes. 
Pu'ma. a name of the couguar or American Lion. 
Pyroge^nous. From the Gr. pur, fire, and geinomai, I beget. Applied to 

rocks which owe their origin to the action of fire, as granite. 
Px'rus. a genus of plants of the family Rosdcece. A pear-tree. 
Pyri'fera. Lat. From pyrus, a pear, and Jcro, I bear. 
Python. A genus of reptiles. 

Quadruma'na. Formed from the Lat. guatuor, four, and manus, hand. An 
order of mammals characterized by having four hands. 

Qua'rtz. Germ. Rock crystal. 

QuARTzosE. Of the nature of quartz. 

Quicksilver. A metal which is fluid at ordinary temperatures. Also 
called mercury. ^ 

44 



518 GLOSSARY. 

Radia'ta. Lat. Radiate; the name of a class of zoophytes. 

Ra'diate. From the Lat. radius, a ray. Furnished with rays ; having rays. 

Radia'tion". The emission of the rays of light, or of heat, from a luminous 
or a heated body. 

Raffle'sia. After Sir T. Raffles. A genus of plants of the family of Raf- 
flesiacese, which are parasites, growing on the roots of dicotyledonous 
plants. The flowers of some of them are enormously large ; the Raffle- 
sia arnoldi are said to be three feet in diameter. 

Rain-b'ttb. Fr. A tree-frog. 

Rantjn-^culus. From the Lat. rana, a frog, because the species inhabit 
humid places. Crow-foot. A genus of plants of the family of Ranuncu- 
lacese. 

Ranun'ouli. Lat. Plural of ranunculus. 

Ra'na. Lat. A frog. A genus of reptiles. 

REFRA''cTioiir. From the Lat. refradus, broken. The deviation of a ray of 
light from its rectilinear course, caused by passing through a transparent 
substance. The degree of refraction depends upon the density of the 
medium through which the ray of light passes. 

Refu^xgens. Lat. Shining brightly ; refulgent. 

Re^ptile. From the Lat. repere, to crawl. A term applied to any animal 
that moves naturally upon its belly, or on very short legs, as serpents, 
&c. 

Repti^lta. The class of reptiles : it comprises those vertebrate animals 
which have cold blood, an aerial respiration, and an incomplete circula- 
tion. 

RESEifiFE''RA. Lat. Containing resin. 

Revolu'ta. Lat. Turned back ; tumbled. 

Rhea. Synonyme of Struthio, an ostrich, 

Rho^dium. From the Gr. rodon, a rose, on account of the rose red color of 
some of its salts. A metal discovered in the year 1803 by Wollaston. 

RH0D0DE''srDR0N^. Erom the Gr. rodon, a rose, and dendron, a tree. A genus 
of plants of the family of Ericaceae. 

RHODOME''tiA. From the Gr. rodon, a rose, and melas, black. A genus of 
plants of the family of Phy^ceae. 

Rhus. A genus of plants of the family of Terebintacese. Rhus vernix. The 
varnish Sumach. 

Rhtnchops. From the Gr. rugdiops, a beak. A genus of birds : the skim- 
mers or scissor-bills. 

Rock-salt. Common salt found in masses or beds in the new red sand- 
stone. 

RoD^EKTiA. From the Lat. rodere, to gnaw. An order of mammals. 

Rodents. Animals of the order Rodentia. 

RoR^auAi. A kind of whalebone whale. 

Ro^sA. A genus of plants of the family of Rosacese. Rosa sinensis. The 
Chinese rose. 

Rubber. Lat. Red. 

RtjBiA^cBiE. A family of plants. 

Ru^BT. A crystalized gem of various shades of red. 

RuFiMA'^Nus. Lat. Red'handed. 

Ru^MiN-ANT. An animal that chews the cud. 

RuMiNA^NTiA. An order of mammals which are characterized by chewing 
the cud. 

Ru^MiNATi. To chew the cud. 



GLOSSARY. 519 

Sa^'i.tnes. Natural deposits of salt; salt springs. 

Sa^lix. Lat. Willow. A genus of plants of the family of Salici'nese 
Sa^lix lana^ta. Woolly willow. 

Salt. A combination of an acid with one or more bases. 

Samo^ius. From the Celtic, san, salutary, and mos, pig. Salutary to pigs. 
Brook-weed. A genus of plants of the family of Primulucese. SamoHus 

■ valera^ndi. Common brook-weed. 

Sakdara^ch. a name given by the Arabs to an odorous resin. 

Sandali^nus. Lat. Sandal-like. 

Sandstonk. Any rock consisting of aggregated grains of sand. 

Sapa^jou. Fr. A genus of monkeys. 

Sapi^ndtjs. Abbreviation of sapo^ soap, and indicus, Indian soap. Soap- 
berry. A genus of plants of the family of Sapinducese. SapVndus sapo- 
na^ria. Common soap-berry. 

Sapona^uia. Lat. Soapy. 

SAPOTA'^cEiE. A family of plants. 

Sa^pphire. a very hard gem consisting essentially of cr^'^stalizedalu'^mina. 
It is of various colors; the ft/we variety being usually called sapphire; the 
red, the oriental ruby ; the yellow, the oriental topaz. 

Sakis S gsnus of monkeys. 

Sarga'sum. From the Span, sargasso, sea-lentils. A genus of plants of the 

family of Phy'cese. 
Sarrace'.nia. After Dr. Sarrazin. The side-saddle flower, or pitcher plant. 

A genus of plants of the family of Sarrace'nies. 
Sau'rian". From the Gr. sauros, a lizard. Applied to animals of the lizard 

tribe. 
Sauroid. From the Gr. sauros, a lizard, and eidos, resemblance. Resembling 

a lizard. 
ScA^NDETfs. Lat. Climbing. 
Schist. From the Gr. schistos, split. Slate. 
ScmsTo^sE. Slaty. 
Schot'ia. After Schott, a Dutch gardener. A genus of plants of the family 

of Leguminosse. Scholia speciosa. Small-leaved Scholia. 
Sci'tame'iteje. a family of plants. 
Scie'ria. Fram the Gr. skleros, hard. A genus of plants of the family of 

Cyperaceae. 
Sco'lopax. a genus of birds : a heron. 
ScopA^RiA. From scopa, a broom. A genus of plants of the family of Scro- 

phulari'neae. 
Sco'RiiE. Volcanic cinders. Cinders and slags of basaltic lavas of a red^ 

dish brown and black color. 
Scoria'ceous. Of the nature of scorisB. 
Sco'riform. In form of scoriae. 
Sct'throps. From the Gr. skuthrops, sad. A genus of birds of the order of 

climbers. A cuckoo. 
Seams. Thin layers or strata interposed between others. 
Seconpart formatiox. In geology the formation which is next in order to 

the transition formation. 
Se'cular. From the Lat. seculum, a century. Secular elevations are those 

which take place gradually and imperceptibly, through a long period of 

time. Secular tides are those which are dependent upon the secular va- 
riation of the moon's mean distance from the earth. 



520 aLOSSARY. 

Sf/dtmkkt. From the Lat. sedeo, I'sit. That which subsides or settles to the 
bottom of any liquid. 

Sedime'ntart. Belonging or relating to sediment. 

Sebife'ra. Lat. Containing tallow. 

Seed-lobe. The envelope ia which the seed in plants is formed. 

Sele'nite. a variety of gypsum, or sulphate of lime. 

Se^mitic. Applied to the languages of the descendants of Sem, or the Ori- 
entals. 

Se'^pal. That part of the calyx of a flower which resembles a leaf. 

Se'pia. a kind of paint prepared from the cuttle fish. A genu of mollusks. 

Ser'pejttine. a magnesian rock of various colors, and often speckled like 
a serpent's back. It is generally dark green. 

Se'ptentuiona'lis. Lat. Northern. 

Ser'rate. From the Lat. serra, a saw. Toothed like a saw. 

Serra'ta. Lat, Serrate. 

Shaft. A cylindrical hollow space, or pit, in mines, made for the purpose 
of extracting ores, &c. 

Shaee. An indurated slaty clay, or clay-slate. 

Shis-gee. Loose, water-worn gravel and pebbles. 

Shore'a. Synonym of Vatica. A genus of plants of the family of Diptero- 
carpege. 

Sierra. Span. A mountain chain. 

Si'eex. From the Gr. chalis, a pebble. The principal constituent of quartz, 
rock-crystal, and other silicious minerals. 

Si'lica. Silicious earth : the oxide of silicon (the elementary basis of Silica,) 
constituting almost the whole of silex or flint. It combines with many of 
the metallic oxides, and is for this reason sometimes called sili'cic acid. 

Si'ticATE. A compound of silicic acid and a base. Plate-glass and window- 
glass are silicates of soda and potassa ; and flint-glass is a similar com- 
pound with a large addition of silicate of lead. 

Siii''cious. Containing silica. 

Siti'ciFiED. Petrified or mineralized by silicious earth. 

Silt. The name given to the sand, clay, and earth, which accumulate in 
running waters. 

SiEi^ciTjM.. The metalloid which forms the basis of silica. 

SiLuRiATsr srsTEM. Series of rocks formerly known as the greywacke series. 
So called after the Silures or Siluri, the ancient Britons who inhabited the 
region where these strata are most distinctly developed. They are en- 
tirely of marine origin. 

Sieu'rus. a genus of fishes of the family of Silurida. 

SiEVA. A forest, or woods. 

Simu'eium. From the Lat. simulo, I feign. A genus of insects of the order 
ofDIptera. 

Sine'ssis. Lat. Chinese ; belonging or relating to China. 

Sin'ter. Germ. A scale. Calcareous sinter is a variety of carbonate of 
lime composed of successive concentric layers. Silicious sinter is a variety 
of common opal. 

SipfloViA. A genus of plants of the family of Euphorbidceae. 

Slate. A well known rock which is divisible into thin plates or layers. 

Smynthus, or SMiifxHus. From the Gr. sminthos, rat. A genus of rodent 
mammals. 

Smybne'nsis. Lat. Belonging, or relating to Smyrna. 



GLOSSARY. 521 

SoiAR spe'ctruivt. Lat. Spectrum, an image. In optics the name given 
to an elongated image of the sun formed on a wall or screen by a beam of 
undecomposed light, received through a small hole, and refracted by a 
prism. 

Soifata'ra. Italian. A volcanic vent emitting sulphur and sulphurous 
compounds. 

Solida'cjo. Golden-rod. A genus of plants of the family of CompositsD. 

So'mate'ria. Synonym VfiXh. platypus. A genus of birds. 

Sopho'ha. A genus of plants of the family Leguminosos. 

Spar. (Germ. Spath.) Applied to certain crystalized mineral substances, 
which easily break into cubic, prismatic, or other forms. 

Spah''rt. Of the nature of spar. 

SpE^ciEs. A kind ; a subdivision of genus. Extinct species is a term ap- 
plied to those kinds of organized beings, whether plants or animals, 
which are not found living upon the face of the earth. 

Speci'fic. Relating to species. 

Specific weight, or specific gravity. The relative weight of one body 
with that of another of equal volume. 

Specio''sa. ■) 

SpEcio'sus. ^ Lat. Handsome. A word used as a specific name. 

SpECIo'sUM.J 

SpE^'cuLAR iROK. A kind of iron ore of granular structure, and metallic 

lustre, sometimes shining. 
Specta'bilis. Lat. Visible, remarkable, noteable. 
Spica'ta. Lat. Having spikes; eared like corn. 
SpijirE''ELE, or Spine'l. French. A sub-species of ruby 
SpiRiE''A. A genus of plants of the family of Rosacea3. 
Spores. The seeds of lichens, and crytogamous plants. 
Spouu'tEs. The diminutive of spores. 
SpuMA^.EOus. From the Lat. spuma, foam. Foamy. 
Stagma'ria. From the Gr. siagma, a drop. A genus of plants of the family 

of Anacardiaceae. Stagma'ria vernicijiua, a tree of Sumatra, from the bark 

of which exudes an extremely acrid juice. This juice quicklv dries in 

the air, becomes black, and is sold at a high price; it is employed in the 

preparation of a varnish. The Sumatrans consider it dangerous to sit 

or sleep in the shade of this tree, 
Sta'mept. Lat. The male apparatus of a flower. 

Stape'eia. Proper name. A genus of plants of the family of Asclepiadeae. 
Starch. A vegetable substance which exists in many tuberous roots, the 

stalks of palnns, and in the seeds of the cereal grasses. 
Step'pe. Fr., from the Ijaii. stipes, a. landmark. A term applied to the 

Savanahs of Tartary, of the Crimea, &c., and salt deserts of Northern 

Asia. 
Sti''gma. The superior, terminating part of the pistil of a flower. 
Stillin'gia. After Dr. Stillingfleet. A genus of plants of the family of 

Euphorbiaceoe. Slillingia sebifera. The lallovv tree of China. 
Stra'ta. Lat. Plural of s<ra/?^m, a layer, a bed. 
Stratifica'tion-. An arrangement in beds or layers. 
Stra'tjfied. Arranged in strata. 
Stra'tus. a kind of cloud: it consists of horizontal layers, and includes 

fogs and mists ; its under surface usually rests upon the land or sea, and 

it is therefore the lowest of the clouds. 
Streht'zia. After Queen Charlotte, of the family of Mecklenburgh Stre 

litz. A genus of plants of the family of Musaceoa. 



622 GLOSSARY. 

Stri'^. Lat, Diminutive channels or creases. 

Stkia'ta. Lat. Striated ; marked with strise. 

Strost'tium. a metalloid found in the earth called strontia. 

Stru'thio. Lat. An ostrich. A genus of birds. 

Strxj'theous. Of the nature of an ostrich. 

Strtch'j«tos. a genus of plants of the family of Apocy'neoe. Strych'nos 

toxica'ria. The poison strychnos. 
Sttle^dium. From the Gr. stulos, a column. A genus of plants of the 

family of Stylideas, found in New Holland. 
Sublima^'tion. The process by which volatile substances are raised by 

heat, and again condensed into the solid form. The substances so ob- 
tained are called sublimates. 
Sub soil. An under soil. 

Sub stra'ta. Lat. Plural o{ substratum, an under layer or bed. 
Scl'phuret. a compound of sulphur with another solid, as with iron, 

forming sulphuret of iron. 
Sur^PHURETTED. Containing sulphur; as hydrogen, containing sulphur, is 

called sulphuretted hydrogen. 
SuPE^RBi. Lat. Superb, elegant. 
SuriaVa. a genus of plants of the family of Surianeoe; it was formerly 

of the Rosaceoe. 
Stcomo'hus. Lat. The Sycamore; applied also as a specific name. 
St'enitk and si'e]n-ite. A granite rock from Syene or Siena in Egypt. It 

consists of quartz, feldspar, and hornblende. It is tougher than granite. 
SzlVta. Name of a genus of birds. 
Sfngene'sta. From the Gr. sun, together, and geinomai, to grow. Linnean 

name of a class of plants. 

Tac'ca. Malay. A genus of plants of the family of Aroideos. Tac'capin- 

natifida. The Salep tree. 
Takg'hinia. From the Madagascar name, Tanghing. A genus of plants 

of the family of Apocy'neoe. Tang'hiniavene'niflua yields an active poison 

which is used to cause death, under judicial sentence, by the natives of 

Madagascar. 
Takta'xidm. a metal, remarkable for its insolubility in acids. 
Tan'taxus. a genus of birds of the family of Herons. 
Tata'rica. Lat. Belonging or relating to Tartary. 
Telesco'pic. Relating to the telescope ; telescopic objects are those which 

may be seen by the aid of a telescope. 
Tellu'rium. a rare metal, found in the gold mines of Transylvania. 
Tempera'ture. a definite degree of sensible heat. 
Tem:pora''ria. liat. Temporary ; relating to time. 
Te'nax. Lat. Tenacious. 
Ter'mes. a genus of insects of the order of Neuroptera, and family of 

Termitidse. White ants. 
Terra ja.po'k^ica. An astringent medicinal gum, obtained from the Acacia 

catechu. 
Tertiart FORMATioif. A scries of sedimentary rocks which are superior 

to the primary and secondary, and distinguished by the fossil remains 

found in them. 
TESTA'cEiE. From testa, a shell. Testaceans ; animals provided with an 

external shelly cover, composed chiefly of carbonate of lime. 
Testa'ceous. Consisting of carbonate of lime and animal matter. 
Testu'do. Lat. Tortoise. A genus of reptiles of the order of Chelonians. 



GLOSSARY. 523 

Tetrace'ra. From the Gr. tettaras, four, and keras^ a horn. A genus of 

plants of the family of Dillenaceae. 
Te'trago'sta. From the Gr. tet7-a, four, and gotws, angle. Having four 

angles; applied as a specific name. A genus of plants of the family of 

Portulaceae. 
Tiie'a. a genus of plants of the tribe of Camelleae. The'a hohea, Bohea 

tea ; Thea viridis, Green tea. 
The^ine. The proximate principle of tea. 

Ther'mal. From the Gr. thermos, heat. Warm ; belonging or relating to 
- heat. 

Tho'rium. a metal obtained from Thorina, an earthy substance. 
Thu'ia, also Thu'ja. A genus of plants of the family of Coni'feraa. Thuia 

articulata. Jointed arbor vitoe. T. orient alis ; Chinese arbor vitse. T. 

sandarach, Shittim wood. 
TiDAi. Relating to tides. Tidal ivave is the elevation of the water of the 

ocean, produced by the attraction of the moon. 
Tilland'sia. a genus of plants of the family of Bromeliaceae. 
Tita'nium. a metal discovered in 1781, by W. Gregor, in a ferruginous 

sand. 
To'dus. a genus of birds of the order of Passerinse. 
To'pAZ. A crystalized mineral, harder than quartz, of a yellow wine 

color. 
Torsion balance. See, Balance. 
Totj'rmaline. a mineral substance consisting of a Boro-silicate of alu- 

mine, harder than quartz, but not as hard as topaz. 
Tourxfo'rtia. After Tournefort. A genus of plants of the family of Bor- 

ragi'nese. 
Tra'chyte. From the Gr. tradnis, rough. A variety of lava. A feldspa- 

thic rock, which often contains glassy feldspar and hornblende. When 

the feldspar crystals are thickly and uniformly disseminated, it is called 

Ir achy tic porphyry. 
Trap. From the Swedish trappa, a flight of stairs, because trap rocks fre- 
quently occur in large tabular masses rising one above another like the 

successive steps of a stair-case. Applied to certain igneous rocks com- 
posed of feldspar, angite, and hornblende. 
Tra'ppean. Belonging to trap rocks. 

Trkma''nbka. A genus of plants of the family of Tremandrea. 
Trias. From the Lat. tres, three. Synonym of the triassic system of rocks, 

consisting of the Bwnter sandstein, the Miischelkalk, and Keuper, a group of 

sandy marls of variegated colors. 
Tricho'manes. From the Gr. Irichos, hair, and mania, madness, excess. A 

genus of plants of the class of Crytoga'mia. Tricho' manes brevise'tum. 

Short-styled trichomanes. 
Trici'rtis. From the Gr. treis, three, and kurtis, a sack or pouch. A ge- 
nus of plants of the family of Melanthaceae. 
Triuenta'ta. Lat. Three-toothed; having three teeth. 
Tri'gonoce'pitalus. From the Gr. treis, three, gonos, an angle, and kephale^ 

head. A genus of very venemous serpents. Tri'gonoce'phalus lanceolaUus. 

Lance. head viper. 
Tri'lobite. From the Lat. tres, three, and lohus, lobe. A genus of fossil 

crustaceans. 
Trio'ntx. From the Gr. treis, three, and onux, a nail. A genus of Chelo- 

nlans. 



524 GLOSSARY. 

Trto'steum. Grora the Gr. treis, three, and osteon, a bone, a nut. A genus 
of plants of the family of Caprifoliaceae. 

Tu'fa. Italian. A volcanic rock, composed of an agglutination of frag- 
mented scorias. 

Tung/steis-. Swedish. Heavy stone. A metal which is hard, white, brittle, 
and difficult to fuse. 

Tu'rq.uoise. a blue mineral found in Persia; its color depends on the 
presence of oxide of copper. 

Um'bei. a form of inflorescence, in which several peduncles expand so as 
to produce a flower somewhat resembling a parasol when open. 

Umbelli''ferjs. From umbel, screen, and/ero, I bear. Name of a family of 
plants. 

Umbelli'ferous. Belonging or relating to Umbellifersp. 

Uncina'ta. Lat. From uncus, a hook. Hooked ; having hooks. 

UpHEAVAi^. The elevation of land by earthquakes. 

Ura'js-ium. a metal discovered by Klaproth, in 1789. 

Ursi''nus. Lat. Belonging or relating to bears. 

U'sifEoiBES. From u^sne, a kind of lichen, and the Gr. eidos, resemblance 
Resembling the u'sne. 

U'rens. Lat. Burning. 

Va'cuum. From the Lat. vacuus, empty. A portion of space void of matter. 

VAGiiVA^ris. Lat. From vagina, a sheath. A genus of birds. 

Vana'dium. a silvery white metal, discovered originally by Del Rio, in 
1801, but not admitted until 1830. 

Vane^ssa. a genus of butterfl.ies. Vanessa car dui^ the painted lady but- 
terfly. 

Vero'nica. a genus of plants of the family of Scropularlnse. 

Ve'rtkbra. From the Lat. vertere, to turn. A joint or bone of the spine. 
Vertebral column, is the spine or back bone. 

Ver'tebrate. Having vertebras, or a spine. 

Vertioose. Whorl-like. 

Vene^jstifltta. Lat. Flowing with poison. 

Verni^ciflua. Lat. Flowing with varnish. 

VER'j>rix. Lat. Varnish. 

ViLLo'sus. Lat. Velvety. 

V/ridis. Lat. Green. 

Vi'tex. Chaste-tree. A genus of plants of the family of Verbenaceae. 

Vit'rified. From the Lat. vitrea, glass. Converted into glass. 

ViTijLi'.vA. From the Lat. vitiilus,a. sea calf. Belonging or relating to seals. 

ViviPA^RUM. Lat. Viviparous. 

Voxca'nic. Belonging or relating to volcanoes. 

VoLTA^ic. Applied to electricity produced after the manner of Volta, an 
Italian philosopher. 

VuLTDR PAPA. The king of vultures. 

Watershed. The general declivity of the face of a country which deter- 
mines the direction of the flowing of water. 

Wealb. Name of a part of Kent and Surrey in "England. The Wealdenclay 
and Wealden deposit are found in this part of England. 

Xanthox'ylum. From the Gr. xanthos, yellow, xulon, wood. Tooth-ache 
tree. A genus of plants of the family of Rutaceae. 



GLOSSARY. 525 

Xera'ntiiemum. From the Gr. zeros, dry, and anlhos, flower. A genus of 
plants of the family of Compo^sit®. 

Yerba mate. Spanish name of the Ilex paraguensis. 

Ytt'rium. a metal discovered by Wohler, in 1828; it is of a dark gray 

color and brittle. 
Yuc'cA. Adam's needle. A genus of plants of the family of Liliuceje. It 

yields an esculent root. 

Za'mia. a genus of plants of the family of Cycadese. 

Zanniche'llia. After Zannichella, a Venetian apothecary. Pond weed. A 

genus of plants of the family of Naiades. 
Zirco'niujm. a metal found in zirconia, an earth, discovered by Klaproth in 

1789. 
Zi'zTPHus. A genus of plants of the family of Rhamni. Z. jujuha, yields 

the jujube fruit. 
Zoste'ra. From the Gr. zoster, a riband. Sea-wrack grass. A genus of 

plants of the family of Fluviales. 
Zo'oLOGT. From the Gr. zo'on, an animal, and logos, a discourse. That 

branch of Natural History which treats of animals. 
Zo'opiiTTE. From the Gr. zo'on, an animal, and phut on, a plant. An animal 

without vertebrae, or extremities, that attaches itself to solid bodies, and 

seems to live and vegetate like a plant. 



INDEX 



A. 



Abyssinia, 89 ; dimensions of, ib. ; ta- 
ble-land, f&. ; mountains, t6. J- geolo- 
gical structure, ib. 

Acidulous springs, 153. 

Admiralty, its encouragement of sci- 
ence, 463. 

Afghanistan, flora of, 320. 

Africa, extent and area, S5 ; height of 
table-land, i6.; interior of continent, 
86 ; width at the Cape of Good Hope, 
ib. i western mountains, 87 ; the ko- 
roos, ib. ; western coast, ib. ; fertile 
tract across the continent, 89, 90 ; 
deserts, 90, 91 ; analogy of Southern 
Africa to the Deccan, 92 j earthquake, 
154. 

, rivers of, 218-224 ; the Gariep, 

or Orange River, 218 ; the Zambesi, 
219 ; the Haines, ib. ; the Hawash, 
ib. ; the Zaire, ib. ; the Nile, i6.-223 ; 
the White Nile, 220 ; its affluents, 
ib. ; the Blue Nile, ib. ; its tributaries, 
ib. ; the Takkazie, ib. ; Abyssinian 
rivers, 221 ; course of the Nile, ib. ; 
its basin, 222 ; velocity, ib. ; inunda- 
tions, ib. ; ancient renown of, ib. ; 
the Niger, 223; barbarous state of its 
nations, i6. ; its sources and course, 
223 ; its affluents, i6./ its branches, 
ib. ; inundations, 224 ; the Gambia, 
ib.; the Senegal, i6. 

flora of, 330 ; quadrupeds of, 



423 ; birds of, 402. 

Agassiz, M., on a former glacier in Cha- 
mouni, 53. 

Agouti, 432. 

Aconcagua, volcano of, 95. 

Ai, species of sloth, 429. 

Airy, Mr., 16 ; 462. 

Alector, genus of birds, 407. 

AUeghanies, chain of, 128, 129; area, 
ib.; scenery, ib.; branches, 129;vege- 
tation on, 342. 

Alligators, 389. 

Alpaca or Paco, 431; on naturaliza- 
tion of, in Europe, ib. 

Alpine vegetation, 318. 



Alps, the, 49 ; higher Alps, their extent, 
ib. ; elevation of central ridge of, ib. ; 
width of the chain, 50 ; ice in, 52 ; 
flora of, 313. 

Altai Mountains, 65 ; length and breadth 
of the chain, ib. ; form, ib.; geology 
of, 66. 

Alluvial deposits by rivers, 33. 

Amblyrhyneus, genus of reptiles, 391. 

Amboyna, its vegetation, 325. 

America, length and form of the conti- 
nent, 93 ; its natural divisions, ib. ; 
climate, ib. ; mountains, ib. ; mean 
height of, 135. 

rivers of, 234-244; the St. 



Lawrence, 235 ; Arctic streams, ib. 
the Mississippi, 235, 236 ; its sources, 
235 ; its tributaries, ib.; the Missouri, 
ib. ; the Arkansas, ib.; the Red River, 
ib.; the Ohio, 236; length of the 
Mississippi, ib. ; floods, 237; rivers 
of the Alleghanny chain, ib. ; of the 
^ocky Mountains, ib. ; Mexican ri- 
vers, ib. ; rivers of the Andes, 238 ; 
the Orinoco, its rise and course, 239 ; 
tributaries, ib. ; area of its basin, 240 ; 
floods, ib. ; the Amazons, its rise and 
course, ib. ; its basin, ib. ; tributaries, 
241 ; floods, f6.; branches, «6. ; colour 
of American rivers, 242 ; the Rio de 
la Plata, its rise, ib. ; tributaries, ib. ; 
length, ib. ; floods and inundations, 
243 ; the Colorado, 243 ; the Rio 
Negro, ib, ; the Essequibo, ib, ; navi- 
gation of South American rivers, ib. i 
the Para, 244 ; the San Francisco, 
ib. 
, continental islands of, 139. 



American quadrupeds, 426 ; birds, 404, 
405 ; races of man, 438. 

America peopled from Asia, 448. 

, Central, its dimensions, 114; 

mountains, ib. ; climate and vegeta. 
lion, 116; volcanos, ib.; geology, 118. 

America, Central, flora of, 344. 

, North, its dimensions and struc- 
ture, 119; mountains, 119-123, 128- 
129; plains, 123, 130; progressive 
extinction of aborigines, 131 ; geolo- 
gical notice, 131-133 ; volcanic ac- 
tion, 131 ; fossil mammalia, ib. ; ana- 



528 



INDEX. 



logy of the geology of North America 
with tliat of Europe, 132-133 ; mean 
height of the continent, 135; coal- 
fields, 184,185; flora of, 341. 

, South, length and width, 93 ; 

its mountains, 94-105 ; low lands, 
105-114; their extent and area, 105 ; 
geology, 109-114; volcanic remains, 
109, 7iote ; upheavings and subsi- 
dences, 1 12 ; mean height of the con- 
tinent, 134 ; earthquakes, 154 ; tropi- 
cal flora of, 346. 

Ammonia, its use in vegetation, 301. 

Amphiuma, 386. 

Amucu, lake, 104. 

Anatolia, table-land and mountains of, 
66. 

Andes, chain of, 93-103 ; Patagonian 
Andes, 94; Chilian Andes, 95 ; Peru- 
vian Andes, 96 ; fertility and popu- 
lousness of, ib. ; ancient civilization, 
ib. ; Bolivian Andes, ib., 97 ; three 
ranges of the chain, 98 ; Andes of 
Cundinamarca and Merida, 100 ; 
passes of the Andes, elevations of, 
101; climate and temperature, 102; 
development of volcanic force in the 
Andes, 109, 110; geology of. 111, 
113; coal found in, 111; volcanic 
products, 112; sea-shells in, ib. ; 
alternate elevation and depression of, 
112, 113; volcanos in eruption in 
1835, 112 ; Andes of Central Ame- 
rica, 114, 115. 

Aneroid barometer, 261. 

Angarai, a Siberian river, 250. 

Angora goat, 418, 

Animated beings, new races of, accom- 
pany great geological changes in the 
strata, 34 ; their ancient geographical 
distribution, 35. 

Anjou, Lieutenant, his voyage, 76, note. 

Anoa, the, 422. 

Anolis, genus of reptiles, 390. 

Antarctic lands, 165-167. 

Ant-eaters, 420. 

Antelopes of Asia, 420 ; of Africa, 
424. 

Antelope Saiga, 419. 

Antelope, Prongbuck, or American, 

. 427. 

Anti-Libanus, height of, 83. 

Ants, 367. 

■^ , white, their ravages, ib. 

Antuco, vegetation at, 350. 

Apennines, their extent, 51. 

Aptenodytes, southern penguin, 408. 

Apteryx, anomalous bird, 410. 

Arabia, peninsnla of, 81, 82 ; eleva- 
tion of tablei-land, 81 ; mountains, 82. 

Arabia Felix, 82. 

Petrea, 83. 



Arabia, flora of, 329. 

Arabians, 437. 

Arago, M., on polarized light,|284. 

Aral, lake of, 248, 249. 

Ararat, Mount, 66, 418. 

Arctic lands, 159-167. 

Ardea helias, 408. 

Areca tree and nut, 324. 

Argali sheep, 418. 

Armadilloes, 429. 

Armenia, plains of, 56. 

Arrowroot, 347. 

Artesian wells, 162, 210. 

Asia, mean height of, 134 ; volcanos of, 
162 ; earthquakes in, 153. 

', rivers of, 224, 234; system of 
the Euphrates and Tigris, area of its 
basin, 224; rise and course of the 
Euphrates, 225 ; of the Tigris, ih. ; 
their junction, ib. ; ancient and pre- 
sent state of their banks, ib. ; the 
Indus, its sources, 226 ; its tributa- 
ries, ib.; its navigation, 227; its 
delta, ib. ; length and area, ib. ; the 
Ganges and Brahmapootra, sources 
of, 228 ; their tributaries, ib. ; length, 
228, 229; inundations, 229; branches, 
ib. ; drainage, ib. ; the Irawady, 230 
the Menam, ib. ; the Cambodja, ib. ; 
the Saiing, 231 ; the Hoang-Ho, ib. ^ 
the Yang-tseKiang, ib. ; the Hong- 
Kiang, 232; the White River, ib. ; 
the Amar, ib. ; the Lena, 'z6. ; the 
Yenessei, 233 ; the Oby and Irtish, 
ib. ; great difference in the inhabi- 
tants of the basins of Asiatic rivers, 
234. 

, flora of, 319 ; quadrupeds of, 417 ; 

birds of, 400. 

Asp, Egyptian, a snake, 387. 

Ass, wild, or onagra, 418. 

Assal, lake of, 250. 

Assam, Upper, its mountains, 64. 

, tea-plant in, 322. 

Assyrian wilderness, 84. 

Atlantic Ocean, volcanic islands of, 
140 ; its size, 189. 

Atlantic Plain, 130. 

Slope, 130. 

Atlas mountains, 46. 

Atmosphere influential in modifying the 
distribution of light and heat, 15. 

Atolls, 142-145; description of, 143; 
diameter, 144; atolls of the Pacific, 
ib. ; of the China Sea, ib. ; of the 
Indian Ocean, 146 ; great extent of 
atolls, 148. 

Auchenia, genus of llamas, 430. 

Auckland Islands, flora of, 353. 

Aurancari, a bird, 407. 

Aurancaria, genus of plants, 349. 

Aurochs, or wild ox, 416. 



INDEX. 



529 



Aurora, the, 290 ; form and height of, 

291 ; efiect on the magnetic needle, 

ib. 
Australia, continent of, 136-139, 
, rivers of, their insignificance, 

244 ; the Murray, ib. ; the Macquar- 

rie, ib. ; Swan River, ib. 
, flora of, 336 ; quadrupeds of, 

344 ; birds of, 309; human races, 438. 
Axolott, a Mexican reptile, 386. 
Azerbijan, 418. 



B. 



Babbage, Mr., on age of peat-mosses, 
358. 

Babiroussa hog, 421. 

Back, Sir George, 463, 

Bahama Islands, 118. 

Bahr-el-Abiad, or White Nile, 251. See 
Nile. 

Bahr-el-Azrek, or Blue Nile. See Nile. 

Baikal mountains, 99. 

Baily, Mr., 19 ; and note. 

Balkan, 50. 

Baltic Sea, its area, 207; basin, ih. -, 
depth, ib. ; climate, ib. ; influence 
on European civilization, 449. 

Baratra, the, 403. 

Barbican, a genus of birds, 403. 

Baring, Sir Francis, 463. 

Barley, origin and cultivation of, 356. 

Barometer, use in determining heights, 
261 ; how affected by storms, 269 ; 
horary visitations of, 262 ; aneroid, 
261, note. 

Barren Ground, the, of North Anierica, 
129. 

Barrier-reefs, 145 ; notice of a reef off 
the north-east coast of Australia, 146. 

Batrachians, an order of reptiles, 384 ; 
their distribution, 385. 

Bear, 417,419. 

, the grizzly, 427. 

Beaufort, Admiral Sir Francis, 463. 

Beaumont, M Elie de, extension of Von 
Buch's views, 39, note; parallelism 
of contemporary chains, 43. 

Beechey, Captain, his measurement of 
the height of the Nevado of Acon- 
cagua, 95. 

Bees, distribution of, 366. 

Beke, Dr., travels in Africa, 89. 

Beloot Tagh, or Cloudy Mountains, 59. 

Benguela, 88. 

Ben Nevis, its elevation, 71. 

Besborough, Earl of, 463. 

Bessel, M., his measurement of the 
earth's radii, 16; his results compared 
with those of Mr. Airy, 17 ; with Colo- 
nel Sabine's. 17, note.l 

45 



Birds, classification of, 392 ; geogra- 
phical distribution of, 393 ; migration 
of, ib.; gregarious, 397 ; British, 398; 
European, 394; Asiatic, 400; Afri- 
can, 402 ; North American, 404 ; 
South American, 405; Australian, 
409 ; of New Zealand, 410 ; fossil 
from New Zealand, 410. 

Bison, the, a species of ox, 427. 

Black Sea, its area, 207 ; basin, ib. ; 
depth, ib. 

Blue Mountains, 117. 

Boa, a genus of serpents, 388. 

Boar, wild, 416. 

Bombon, plain, its height, 98. 

Borax, lakes of, in Tibet, 250. 

Borneo, general features, products, and 
climate of, 143 ; population of, 438. 

Boue, M., his deductions from a compa- 
rison of different parts of the land, 

42 ; nature-s fundamental types few, 

43 ; interruptions in continents and 
mountain-chains, 45 ; Scandinavian 
mountain system, 70. 

, Dr., on the influence of chains of 

mountains on the difference of na- 
tions, 448. 

Brazil, table-land, its form, 104; boun- 
daries, ib. ; soil, 105 ; flora of, 348. 

Brienz, lake of, 247. 

Britain, flora of, 317. 

British mountains, geology of, 71. 

British population, 443. 

Brooke, Sir J., at Borneo, 460. 

Buch, Von, the structure of the globe, 
39, note; notice of mountains in 
Germany, 44; classification of islands, 
139 ; boundary of the Australian con- 
tinent, 141. 

Bunsen, Chevalier, on the antiquity of 
the Egyptian dynasties, 444, note. 

Buphaga, a genus of birds, 403. 



C. 

Caama antelope, 424. 

Cabia, or myopotamus, 433. 

Cachalot, or spermaceti whale, 379 

Calbongos, 88. 

Camel, Bactrian, 420; Arabian, or 

dromedary, ib. 
Camelia, country of, 321. 
Campbell's Island, 354. 
Campos Pdrecis, desert of, 105. 
Canadas, the, products, 127; ice-storntiB 

128 ; waste-land, ib. 
Cape Negro, 87. 

Cape pigeons, or pintadoes, 393. 
Cariama, a gallinaceous bird, 407. 
Caribbean Sea, 209. 
Caroline Archipelago, 144. 



530 



INDEX. 



Carpathian mountains, 49. 
Carnivorous quadrupeds, 414, 
Cashmere, flora of, 310. 

goat, 419. 

Casius, Mount, height of, 83. 
Caspian Sea, its depression, 73. 

■ , 24S. 

Cassican, genus of birds, 401. 

Cassawary, 402. 

Caucasus, the, 55. 

Caucasian race of mankind, 436 ; its 

distribution, i&. 
Cavendish, Mr,, 19. 
Cebus, an American monkey, 429. 
Celtic races of man, 441. 
Cerealia, geographical distribution of, 

355. 
Cereopsis, a New Holland bird, 410. 
Cerro Duida, height of, 104. 
Cetacea, division of, 377. 
Ceylon, island of, SO ; flora of, 329. 
Chameleons, 390. 
Chamois, 417, 419. 
Charpenter, M,, his measurement of 

the base of the Pyrenees, 134, note. 
Cheiroptera, or bats, 414. 
Chelonians, or turtles, 392. 
Chelydse, 391. 
Cherokee Indians, 458. 
Chile, its climate, 95 ; group of volcanic 

vents, 110; rise of the coast, 113; 

vegetation of, 349. 
Chimpanzee, 422, 425. 
China, great productiveness of, 78 ; area 

of its alluvial plain, ib. ; extent of 

great canal of, ib. ; climate, ib. ; fire- 
hills and fire-springs of, 152 ; flora of, 

321. 
Chinchilla, 432. 
Chinese empire, extent of mountains in, 

69. 

population, 437. 

Chionis, an antarctic bird, 409. 

Chions, 410. 

Chiquisaca, 97. 

Chitta, the hunting leopard, 421. 

Chlamyphorus, 429. 

Choco, chain of, 100. 

Cinchona, or Peruvian-bark tree, 311 ; 

347. 
Circassians, 436. 
Civilization, effects of, 439 ; greatest in 

the vicinity of the sea, 457. 
Climate during the Eocene period, 29 ; 

excessive cold of the Pleiocene period, 

31. 

altered by cultivation, 451. 

Clouds, formation and height of, 274 ; 

different names given to, ib. 
Coal, diffusion of, 181-186; quantity 

consumed and exported annually by 

Great^ Britain, 184, note; quantity 



produced in France in 1841, ib. ; 
quantity raised in one year, z6., note ; 
annual value of coal, 184. 

Coalfields, great extent of, 36. 

Coasts, extent and form of, 40 ; compa- 
rative extent of, in the four quarters 
of the globe, 41. 

Cobra capello, or hooded snake, 387. 

Coca (Erythroxylon), 350. 

Coccineal insect, 366. 

Cseciliae, genus of reptiles, 386. 

Coffee-plant, and history of, 330. 

Cold, regions where greatest, 258. 

Colima, volcanic cone, 121. 

Colobus, genus of Lemuridae, 425. 

Colombian Archipelago. See West In- 
dian Islands. 

Condor, the, 406. 

Conifera3, family of plants, 362. 

Continent, the great, form of, 45 ; its 
high lands, 46, 69 ; European portion 
of its mountains, 47 ; extent and 
breadth of high lands between the 
Mediterranean and the Pacific, 55 ; 
area of its high land, 73; southern 
low lands, 77 ; great extent of desert, 
92 ; continental islands of, 140. 

Continents, forces that raised them, 
their mode of action, 37 ; area of the 
great continent, 38 ; relative extent 
of continents and islands, ib. ; eleva- 
tion of continents, 41 ; interruptions 
in, 45; mean height of, 133; height 
of their centres of gravity, 135. 

Continental islands described, 139. 

Copper, diffusion of, 178. 

Coral formations, four kinds of, 143. 

reefs, 146. 

Cotopaxi, height of, 99. 

Coucals, genus of birds, 401. 

Coucou, 407. 

Couroucou, species of bird, 401. 

Crater of elevation, definition of, 48, 
note. 

Crax alector, 407, 

Crime, decrease of, by education, 471. 

Crocodiles in general, 389 ; of the Nile, 
ib. ; of the Ganges, ib. 

Cryptogamia, 306, 

Cuba, area and coast-line, 118; height 
of its mountains, ib. 

Culture, its influence on the human 
form, 447. 

Currents, causes of, 197; direction and 
velocity, i6. ; great oceanic currents, 
198; Gulf-stream, 199; breadth of 
currents, ib. ; counter-currents, 200 ; 
periodical currents, ib. ; effect of cur- 
rents on voyages, 201. 

Cusco, city, 98 ; reliquea of the Incas, 
ib. 

Cush, or land of Ethiopia, 443, 



531 



Cutch, river of, 81. 
Cuvier, Baron, 30, 32, 463. 
Cuyo, a province of South America, 
430. 



D. 

Daman, or Hyrax, 425. 

Dangerous Archipelago, 144, 

Daouria mountains, 66. 

, flora of, 316. 

Darwin, Mr., his speculations on perfect 
animals found buried in Siberia, 32 ; 
his * Travels in South America' 
quoted, 112; on red water .on the 
coast of Chile, 370 ; on reptiles of 
Galapagos, 391 ; on Acoucagua Peak, 
272. 

Dasyurus, a genus ofcarnivora, 434. 

Da Vinci, Leonardo, his hydraulic ope- 
rations, 217, note. 

Davy, Sir Humphry, his discovery of 
metalloids, 16S; his safety-lamp, 173, 
note. 

Day and night, unequal duration of, 15. 

Dead Sea, depression of, 84, note. 

Decandolle, M., on botanical regions, 
note, 308 ; on growth of trees, 358. 

Deccan, table-land of, 79; its height 
and composition, 80 ; structure, ib. ; 
soil, ih. 

Deer, Asiatic, 421. 

De la Beche, Sir Henry, on metallifer- 
ous deposits, 170,463. 

Dembia lake, 251. 

Deodara pine, 320. 

Desagaedero, table-land or valley of, 
its dimensions, 96 ; its area, 97. 

Dinornis, a fossil bird, 410. 

Dip of the horizon, 17. 

Distance estimated from known height 
of an object, 17. 

Dodo, an extinct bird, 410. 

Dogs, American, 427. 

Dolphins, 378. 

Domestic animals, number of species, 
452. 

Donny, M., his experiments with boiling 
water, 163. 

Douglas, Mr., his account of an erup- 
tion of the volcano of Kirkawah in 
1834,151. 

Dove, Professor, on mean tempera- 
tures, 259. 

Dragon lizard, 390. 

Dry River, 86. 

Dugong, the, 377. 

Dzeran goat, 419. 

Dziggetai, the, 4 IS, note. 



E. 



Earth, the, its insignificance in space, 
13; instability of its shell, 14 ; its in- 
ternal fires, ib. ; changes which have 
brought about its present state, ib.; its 
future destruction, ib. ; its distance 
from the sun, 15 ; its annual and diur- 
nal revolutions, ib. ; its position in 
the solar system, ib. ; inclination of 
the axis, ib. ; its relative magnitude, 
ib ; its oblateness, note, ib. ; its figure 
and density deduced from the pertur- 
batiotis in the motions of the moon, 
ib. ; its curvature, 16; modes of de- 
termining its form and size, ib. ; its 
radii, ib. ; its circumference and di- 
ameter, ib. ; experiment to ascertain 
the value of its mass, 18 ; its mean 
density, 19 ; increase in density to- 
wards the centre, ib. ; constitution of 
its surface, ib. ; an idea of its struc- 
ture obtained from raining, ih. ; its 
antiquity, 34 ; unequal arrangement 
of land and water, 37, 38 ; ancient 
internal action, 135. 

Earthquakes, 153-157 ; causes of, 154; 
propagation of the shock, ib. ; effect 
on the sea, 155 ; elevation of the 
ground, ib. ; sound of the explosion, 
rate of progression of, ib. ; velocity 
of the great oceanic wave, 156 ; com- 
parative destructiveness of earth- 
quakes, 157 ; frequency of small 
shocks, ib. ; extent of undulations, 
ib.; rapidity of destruction, ib. ; par- 
tial shocks, ib.; effects of earthquakes 
on the configuration of the country, 
158. 

Eagles, 395. 

East India Company, its encouragement 
of science, 463. 

Echidna, 435. 

Edentata, 414; South American, 429. 

Egede, M., on sea-serpents, 381. 

Ehrenberg, M., microscopic shells dis- 
covered by, 35. 

Eider duck, the, 407. 

Eocene period, the globe and its in- 
habitants during, 29. 

Elburz, elevation of, 56. 

Electricity in general, 285 ; of the atmo- 
sphere, 286. 

Elephants, fossil, multitudes of, in Si- 
beria, 36, 

, Asiatic, 421 ; African, 424. 

Elk, the, 416. 

Elliot, Mr. Alexander, his expedition to 
the sources of the Ganges, 228. 

El-Teh, desert of, 82. 



532 



INDEX. 



Eltonsk,lake of, 248. 

Emigration, its effects in Great Britain, 
459. . 

Emu, Australian cassowary, 410. 

Emy.s, fresii-water tortoise, 391. 

Encircling reefs, 145. 

England, earthquakes in, 154 ; its coal- 
fields, 182. 

Equator, protuberant matter at, influ- 
ences and is influenced by the moon's 
motion, 17, note. 

Erebus, Mount, 166. 

Erie, lake, 251. 

Erman, M., on evaporation, 273. 

Espenhaco, chain of, 105. 

Esquimaux, 437. 

Ethiopian races, 438. 

Etna, manner of its explosions, 153. 

Europe, mean height and area of, 134. 

European mountains, frequency of deep 
lakes in, 50; geological notice, 53. 

Evaporation in diff"erent regions, 272. 



F. 



Factory labour, 412, note. 

Falkland Islands, vegetation of, 352. 

Famel, 425. 

Faraday, Dr., on auroras, 291 ; on mag- 
netic properties of matter, 296. 

Feroe Islands, 70. 

Fichlelberge, area of, 48. 

Finns, the, 442. 

Fire, subterranean lakes of liquid, 14 ; 
volcanic, its agency in the formation 
of rocks, 20. 

Firefly, the, 366. 

Fishes, geographical distribution, 373 ; 
migration of, 375 ; fresh- water, i&. 

FitzRoy, Captain, 447 ; note, 459. 

Floras of different countries, 312. 

Fogs, how produced, 273. 

Fonseca Bay, 252. 

Forbes, Professor E., on British fauna 
and flora, 31, note ; on glaciers, 53 ; 
on primary floras, 310; on Egean 
fuci,360; on the influence of depth 
on marine animals, 370 ; on the Me- 
diterranean, 371. 

Formosa, population of, 438. 

Fossil remains, immense qnantity of, 
35. 

Foulahs, an African nation, 438. 

Fourrier's theory of central heat, 256. 

Fox, the, 416. 

, Mr., on metalliferous deposits, 

170, 

France, its high lands, 48 ; mean height 
of its flat provinces, 73 ; mean eleva- 
tion of, 134. 

Franklin, Sir John, 464. 



Fringillas, genus of birds, 398. 

Frogs, 384. 

Fuci, or sea-weeds, 361. 

Fuegians, 392. 

Fuego, volcano del, 115. 

Future state, a universal belief in, 448. 



G. 



Galago, genus of Lemurida?, 426. 

Galapagos islands, flora of, 341 ; birds 
of, 408 ; mollusca of, 372. 

Ganges, valley of the, 79 ; soil, ib. ; flat- 
ness, ih. 

Gardner, Mr., his computation of the 
extent of dry land, 38, note. 

Gecko, a species of lizard, 390. 

Gems, diffusion of, 186. 

Geneva, lake of, 247. 

Geography, Physical, definition of, 13 ; 
effects of the intellectual superiority 
of man among its most important 
subjects, ib. ; connection between it 
and geological structure of countries, 
42. 

Geology, outline of, 19-36. 

Georgian race, 436. 

Gerard, Captain, his estimate of the 
mean height of the Himalaya, 61 ; 
notices of its vegetation, 63 ; snow- 
line, ib. ; height of the snow-line on 
mountains of Middle Asia, 135, nofe. 

Gerboa, or Jerboa, 419. 

Geysers, 162 ; Great Geyser, 163 ; Strokr, 
ib. 

Giant petrel, 408. 

Gibbon, a genus of monkeys, 422. 

Gibraltar, Strait, depth of, 46. 

Gipsies, number of, 442. 

Giraffe, 423. 

Glaciers, 52 ; their rate of motion in the 
Alps, ib. ; their composition, i6. ; their 
enormous pressure, ib. 

Glutton, 417. 

Goatsuckers, 398. 

Gobi, Great, area and elevation of, 69 ; 
climate, ib. ; mean height, 134. 

Gobi, desert of, 250. 

Gold, diffusion of, 174. 

Gonung-Api, volcanic island of, 149. 

Gothard, St., pass of, 50. 

Guasacalco river, 252. 

Gough's Islands, 282. 

Grampian hills, 71. 

Grampus, 379. 

Gran Chaco, desert of, 107. 

Gran Sasso d'ltalia, height of, 51. 

Gravitation, variations in its intensity, 
18. 

Great Central Plain of North America, 
see Mississippi, valley of. 



533 



Great Northern Plain, 73 ; its soil, ib. ; 

geology, 77. 
Grecian mountains, 51. 
Greeks, 436. 

Greenland, 159 ; flora of, 341. 
Greenwich Observatory, 462. 
Guachero, the, 406. 
Guan, a gallinaceous bird, 407. 
Guaiiaco, 431. 
Guatemala, table-lnnd of, 115; fertility, 

ib. ; elevaiion, ib. ; volcanos. 2&. 
Guinea, flora of, 348. 

, North, 8S. 

, New, its size, 141 ; height of its 

mountains, 142. 
Gulf of Mexico, 209. 
Gurla, mountain of, 249. 



H. 



Hail, how formed, 280. 

Haiti (San Domingo), dimensions, 117; 
its mountains, ib. 

Halos, 283. 

Haudramant, depth of loose sand in, 82 ; 
tradition concerning, ib. 

Hebrides, 71. 

Heckla, mount, 161. 

Heights of places, table of, 475. 

Helena, St., 295. 

Hermit Island, 352. 

Herschei, Sir John, on cause of revolv- 
ing storms, 264. 

Himalaya, chain, general structure, 60; 
mean height, ib. ; height of its peaks, 
ib, ; passes of, 62 ; climate, 63 ; range 
of vegetation, ib. ; geology of, 64. 

Hindoo Coosh, 60, 296 ; passes of, 62. 

Hindostan, plains of, their extent, 79 ; 
peninsula, ib. 

Hippelaphus of Aristotle, 422. 

Hippopotamus, 424. 

Holland, depression of, 73. 

, New, length and breadth, 136 ; 

climate, ib. ; coasts, ib. ; mountain- 
chain, 137 ; length and average height 
of mountains, ib. ; rivers, 138. See 
Australia, rivers of. 

Hooker, Sir William J., 463, note. 

, Dr. J. D., on marine plants, 

359, note ; on Antarctic Algae, 362. 

Hopkins, Mr., his theory of fissures, 44. 

Horizon, its dip, 17. 

Horse, 421 ; virieties of, ib., 427. 

Houtias, a gnawing animal, 433, 

Human races, 436 ; permanency of type, 
444; discrepancy of their colour, 445. 

Human constitution, its flexibility, 445. 

Humboldt, Baron, his 'Cosmos,' 5; 
on the inclination of the Peak of Te- 
nerifi'e, 42 ; estimate !of the mean 



height of the Himalaya, 61 ; on the 
silvas of the Amazons, 107 ; on the 
influence of table-lands and moun- 
tains on the mean height of continents, 
133 ; estimate of height of mean crest 
of the Pyrenees, 134,wo/e; measure- 
ments of highest peaks and mean 
heights of several mountain-chains, 
135, note; notice of an earthquake at 
Riobamba in 1797, 157 ; his statement 
of the quantity of the precious metals 
brought to Europe from America, 176 ; 
on river-floods, 215. 

Humming birds, 406. 

Hunter, John, 463. 

Huron, lake, 250. 

Hurricanes, 267. 

Hydraulic systems of Europe, 216 ; divi- 
sions, ib. ; system of the Volga, ib. ; 
Danube, z6.; origin of the application 
of hydraulics to rivers, 217 ; system 
of Britain, 218. 

Hydrogen, influence on vegetation, 301. 

Hydrographic Office, Admiralty, 463. 

Hycena, Asiatic species, 431 ; African 
species, 425. 

Hyla, or tree-frog, 385. 

Hyrax, or Daman, 425. 

Hyrcanian mountains, 48. 



Ibex, or wild goat, 417. 

Ibis, the red, 408. 

Ice, quantity in the Alps, 52 ; rivers of, 
ib. 

Ice, polar, 203 ; area of, in the Arctic 
Ocean, ib. ; north polar ice, ib. ; 
packed ice, 204 ; icebergs, ib. ; co- 
lours of ice, 205. 

Ice mountains, 607. 

Iceland, 166 ; ice mountains, 161 ; gla- 
ciers, ib. ; desert, ib. ; volcanos, ib. ; 
eruptions, ib. ; geysers, 163 ; fiords, 
164; products, ib. ; climate, ib. ; 
storms, ib. 

Inchneumon, a carnivorous quadruped, 
417. 

India, flora of, 320. 

Indian Archipelago, islands of, 141 ; 
their importance, 142 ; surveys of 
their coasts, ib. ; flora of, 326. 

Indian desert, 81. 

Indo-Chinese peninsula, 78 ; its popula- 
tion, 437. 

Insects, geographical distribution of, 
363 ; number of, ib. ; migration of, 
367. 

Iran, plateau of, see Persia. 

Ireland, its scenery, 71 ; coal districts, 
183. 



534 



INDEX. 



Iron, diffusion of, 182 ; quantity manu- 
factured in Britain in 1844, IS3, note ; 
uses, 184, note ; value of, in France, 
in 1838, ib., note. 

Isatis fox, 427. 

Islands, their relative extent to that of 
tiie continents, 38 ; classification of, 
139. 

Isothermal lines, 258. 

Itambe, mountain, height of, 105. 



J. 



Jackal], 425. 

Jaguar, or American tiger, 428. 

Jamaica, its area, 117 ; mountains, ib. ; 
extent of coast, 118 ; temperature, ib. 

Jan Mayen's Land, 164. 

Japan, flora of, 321. 

Japanese, 437. 

Java, volcanos of, 149; height of vol- 
canic mountains, z6.; destruction of a 
mountain in 1772, ib. ; character of 
the coast, ib. ; " Valley of Death," 
153, 

Jebel Houra, 82. 

Okkdar, height of, 82. 

Jewish population of Europe, 442. 

Johnston, Mr. Keith, his Physical Atlas, 
5 ; 43, note. 

Jordan, valley of, its fertility, 84 ; its 
depression, ib. 

Jordan, river, 247. 

JoruUo, volcanic cone, its sudden ap- 
pearance, 121. 

Jukes, Mr., his description of the rolling 
of the billows along the great Austra- 
lian barrier-reef, 146. 

Jura, elevation of, 50. 



K. 



Kail as Peak, 249. 

Kalmuks, 437. 

Kamichi, a gallinaceous bird, 407. 

Karatchatka, flora of, 315. 

Kangaroo, 434. 

Kangaroo rat, 434. 

Kelat, elevation of, 58. 

Kerguelen's Land, vegetation of, 355. 

Keyserling, Count, 67, note. 

Khing-han mountains, 59. 

Kiang, wild ass of Tibet, 419. 

Kingfishers, 398. 

Kinkajou, the, 428. 

Kirawah, volcano of, 151 ; eruption in 

1834, ib. 
Kirghiz, steppes of, 75. 
Kokonor lake, 250. 
Kombst's ethnographic map, 443, note. 



Kosciusko, mount, height of, 137. 
Kourdistan mountains, 56. 
Kuen-lun (or Chinese) mountains, 59. 
Kurile Islands, volcanic vents of, 151. 



L. 



Laccadive Archipelago, 145. 

Ladak, 317. 

Ladoga, lake of, 246. 

Lagoons and Lagoon Islands, 143 ; 
described, 146 ; theories of their for- 
mation, ib. ; and note, 147. 

Land, dry, its area, 37 ; its proportion 
to the ocean, 38, note ; relative quan- 
tity in the northern and southern 
hemispheres, 38 ; and in the various 
quarters of the globe, ib. ; unexplored, 
ib. ; polar lands, ib.; tendency of land 
to assume a peninsular form, 39 ; out- 
line of the land, ib. ; changes in its 
level, 158. 

Languages varying, 440 ; number of, 
ib. ; derivation and comparison of, ib. ; 
spoken in Britain, 443. 

La Paz, city, 97. 

Lapland, flora of, 315. 

Laristan mountains, 57. 

Latitude, sine of, 17, note. 

Layard, Mr., his antiquarian researches, 
225, note. 

Lead, diffusion of, 176. 

Lebanon, mountains of, 83. 

Leithart, Mr., 169, note. 

Lemurs, 422, 426. 

Leon or Managua, lake of, 252. 

Leopard, 421. 

Life, duration of, in different classes of 
society, 450, note. 

Light, composed of different rays, 280 ; 
its properties, 281 ; absorbed by the 
atmosphere, 282 ; polarized, 284 j in- 
fluence on vegetation, 301. 

Lightning, 288. 

Lion, the, 425. 

Litako, in South Africa, 459. 

Lizards, 390. 

Llama, 430 ; on its naturalization in 
Europe, 431, note. 

Llanos of the Orinoco and Venezuela, 

108 ; area of, ib. ; character, ib. ; cli- 
mate, ib. ; floods and conflagrations, 

109 ; temperature, ib. 
Locusts, flights of, 367. 

Locks on canals, early use of, 217 ; 

their application by Leonardo da 

Vinci, ib. 
Lophophorus, a bird, 401. 
Lop lake, 250. 
Loudon, Alex., Esq., account of the 

" Valley of Death," in Java, 153. 



INDEX. 



;35 



Lourie, a genus of parrots, 402. 

Loxa, mountain-knot of, 98. 

Lucerne, lake of, 247. 

Lyell, Sir Charles, his theory of the 
formation of rocks, 20 ; division of 
tertiary strata, 2S ; on the Alleghanny 
mountains, 128 ; on the fossiliferous 
rocks of northern Europe and Ame- 
rica, 132 ; on the coal fields of North 
America, 185 ; on moUusca in the 
temperate zones, 372 ; on the number 
of existing species of animals, 381. 

Lynch, Lieut., relative height of Dead 
Sea and Jerusalem ; analysis of Dead 
Sea, 248, note. 

Lynch, Lieut., expedition to the Dead 
Sea, 84, note. 

Lynx, the, 416. 



M. 

MacCormick, Robert, Esq., his descrip- 
tion of the first view of Victoria Land, 
165. 

Mace plant, 325. 

Madagascar, 87 ; fauna of, 426 ; inhabi- 
tants of, 438. 

Mageroe Island, 279. 

Maggiore lake, 247. 

Magnetism, 291. 

Magnetic poles of the earth, 292. 

intensity, force of, 293. 

■ — needle, hourly variation of, ib. 
• — variation or declination, 294. 

storms, 295. 

force, lines of equal, 296. 

Magnolias, region of, 343. 

Maize, or Indian corn, origin and cul- 
ture of, 345. 

Malabar, extent and height of its moun- 
tains, 80. 

Malayan races of man, 438. 

Maldive Archipelago, its dimensions, 
145 ; size of its atolls, ib. 

Malurus Africanus, 403. 

Mammalia, division into groups, 413; 
geographical distribution, 414 ; migra- 
tion of, 415 ; instinct of, ib. 

Man, division into races, 436 ; his influ- 
ence on the material world, 450. 

Manasa, or Manasarowar, lake of, 67 ; 
height of, 418. 

Manatus, or lamantin, 377. 

Mandshur, its aspect, 78. 

Mandtchouria, 321. 

Manfredi on the rate of rise in the bed 
of the ocean, 34. 

Mango, a fruit, 327. 

Manis, 421,425. 

Mankind, numbers of, 436. 

Marabous crane or stork, 404. 



Marine animals in general, 370. 

mammalia, classification of, 376. 

vegetation, 358. 

Marriage, average number of, annually, 
455. 

Marsupial, or pouched quadrupeds, 434. 

Martineau. Miss, her ' Journey to Egypt 
and Syria' quoted, 152. 

Mediterranean Sea, volcanos of, 152 ; 
its area, 207 ; sources of supply, ib. ; 
depth, ib. ; tides and currents, 208 ; 
bed, ib. ; coasts, ib. ; its influence on 
European civilization, 449. 

Miocene period, the globe and its in- 
habitants during, 29. 

Mekram, desert of, 81. 

Menopoma, genus of reptiles, 386. 

Menura, or lyre-bird, 409. 

Meridian, terrestrial, 16 ; area of, mea- 
sured by M. Bessel,^^.; length of a 
degree of, iB. ; measurement of an 
arc at Quito, 99. 

Metals, list of, 168, note ; diffusion of, 
174.' 

Metalliferous Deposits, 169, &c. ; di- 
rection of, 170 ; peculiar to particular 
rocks, 171. 

Metalloids, list of, 168, note. 

Mexico, table-land and mountains, 120 ; 
dimensions, iD. ; city of, ib. ; vol- 
canos, 121 ; Barancas, 122 ; vegeta- 
tion, ib. ; flora, 344. 

Midas Leonina, a genus of monkeys, 
429. 

Miildendorf, M., 67, note. 

Millet, its cultivation, 356. 

Mindanao, population of, 438. 

Mines, mode of opening, 172 ; drainage, 
ib. ; ventilation, 173; access, ib. ; 
depth, ib. 

Mineral produce of Europe, value of, 
in 1829, 183, note; proportion fur- 
nished by England, ib., note. 

Mineral veins, parallelism of, 43 ; fill- 
ing of, 169 ; richest near the surface, 
170, note. 

Mirage, 282. 

Mississippi, valley of the, its area, 123 ; 
table-land, ib. ; general character, 
124; southern desert, ib. ; marshes, 
ib. ; the Grand Saline, ib. ; prairies, 
ib.; forests, 125; [Upper Valley of the, 
126,177;] new states, 125; principal 
lakes, ih. 

Mitchell, Mr., on the causes of earth- 
quakes, quoted, 155. 

Mongol Tartar races, 437. 

Mongolia, its situation, 60 ; little 
known, 69. 

Monitor, genus of reptiles, 389 ; fossil, 
390. 

Monkeys, American, 428 ; African, 425. 



5136 



INDEX. 



Monocotyledonous plants, 306. 

Monsoons, 266. 

Mont Blanc, its height, 49 ; quantity of 
ice on, 52. 

Moon, the, its influence on, and dis- 
tance from the earth, 15 ; its pertur- 
bations show the compression at the 
poles, ib. ; inequality in its motions 
produced by matter at the earth's 
equator, 17, note. 

— — , the, mountains of, 88. 

Moorcroft, Mr., elevation of the sacred 
lake Manasa, 67. 

Moose-deer, or elk, 4251. 

Moraines, 52. 

Mosasaurus, 390, note. 

Moscow, height of, 73. 

Mosquito, the, 365. 

Mountains, forms of, 41 ; their decli- 
vity, 42 ; contemporaneous upheaval 
of parallel mountain-chains, 43 ; in- 
terruptions in, 45; table of the heights 
of the principal mountains of the 
globe, 475. 

Mountain-chains, assumed form of, 129, 
note ; a barrier to insects, 364. 

Moufflon, 416, 

Mowna Rowa mountain, 259. 

M'Quhae, Capt., 382. 

Murchison, Sir Eoderick J., on the geo- 
logy of the Altai chain, 66 ; observa- 
tions on Siberia, 67, noie; researches 
in the Ural mountains, 72 ; on the 
geology of Northern Europe, 77. 

Museum, British, improved state of,462, 

of Practical Geology, 463. 

, Hunterian, 463. 

Musk-deer, Moschus, 420. 

Musk-ox, 427. 

Musk-rat, or musquash, 427. 

Mycetus, or Beelzebub monkey, 429. 

Mysore, table-land of, height, 80 ; soil, 
ib. 

Myvatr, 365. 



N. 



Newhal, or Monoceros, 379. 

Negro tribes, 438. 

Nejid, province of Arabia, 420. 

Newfoundland, population of, 130; dis- 
tance from Ireland, ib. 

New Ireland, people of, 438. 

Siberian Islands, 165. 

Zealand, flora, 338; fauna 411; 

birds, 410 ; inhabitants, 438. 

Nevado of Aconcagua, height of, 95. 

of Cayambe, height of, 99. 

Niagara, lake and fill of, 251. 

Nicaragua, plain and lake, area of, 1 15 ; 

. lake and isthmus, 252. 



Nile, valley of, 91 ; river, 219. 
Nilgherry mountains, height of, 80. 
Niti or Netee Pass, 62. 
Nitrogen contained in the air, 300 ; in 

plants, ib. 
Nitriin, valley of, its convents, 91. 
Norway, character of its coast, 70. 
Notornis, fossil bird, 411. 
Nova Zembla, flora of, 314. 
Nutmeg, the plant, 325. 
N'yassi, lake, 86. 



O 



Ocean, the proportion it bears to the 
land, 37; mean depth of, 135; its 
bed, 188; she,ib.; sandbanks, 189; 
pressure, 190; colour, ib.; saltness, 
191; tides, ib.; waves, 192; cur- 
rents, 197; temperature, 201; polar 
ice, 203; inland seas, 206; agency 
of the ocean in changing the surface 
of the earth, 209. 

Oitz, lake of, 250. 

Okhotsk, sea of, 263. 

Oman, height of its mountains, 81. 

Onega, lake, 246. 

Ontario, lake of, 251. 

Opossum, 428, 429. 

Orange River, 85. 

Orang-outang, 422. 

Oriental plateau. See Tibet. 

Orinoco, river, 103 ; its cataracts, ib.; 
region of Upper Orinoco, its fertility, 
104. 

Ornythorhynchus. 435. 

Oscillations of the Pendulum. See Pen- 
dulum. 

Ostrich, the African, 404; the Ameri- 
can, 410. 

Otaheite, 145. 

Otter, the, 417. 

Owen, Professor, his discoveries as a 
geologist, 30; on sea-serpent, 382; 
on British fossil quadrupeds, 417, 463. 

Owhyhee, its volcanos, 151. 

Owls, 398. 

Ox, varieties of, 420. 

Oxygen, its influence on vegetation, 301 . 



P. 



Paca, 433. 

Pacayo, Volcano de, 115. 

Pachydermata, 413. 

Pacific Ocean, islands of, 140 ; volcanic 
islands in, 148; great volcanic zone 
in, 149; areas of elevation and subsi- 
dence in its bed, ib.; its size, 189. 

Palapteryx, fossil bird, 411. 



INDEX. 



537 



Palms, distribution of, 333. 

Paltee, lake of, 249. 

Pamer, table-land, 420. 

Pampas of Buenos Ayres, 106; their 
elevation, ib.; floods, 107 ; conflagra- 
tions, ih.', geology, 113. 

Pamperos hurricanes, 271. • 

Panama, plains of, extent, 115. 

Pandanus, genus of plants, 144. 

Pangolin, or manie, 421. 

Panicum, genus of Cerealia, 356. 

Panthers, 421. 

Paradise, birds of, 402. 

Parima, mountain system of, 103 ; Sier- 
ra del Parima, ih,; musical rock in, 
ih. 

Parry, Sir Edward, 464. 

Parry's Mountains, 166. 

Passages across the Atlantic, 267. 

Patagonia, desert of, 106; climate, ib.; 
geology, 1 13. 

Peccari, or South American hog, 428. 

Pelasgic Islands, description of, 140. 

Peltier's experiments on the heat of the 
earth, 255. 

Pendulum, 17; its oscillations influ- 
enced by gravitation, ib.; variations 
in, 18 ; experiments with, for ascer- 
taining compression at the poles, 17; 
aff*ected by vocanic islands, ib. 

Penguins, southern (Aptenodytes), 408. 

Peninsulas, their southward tendency, 
40 ; form, ih. 

Pentland, Mr. his measurements of Cor- 
dilleras and mountains of the Andes, 
97, note; and of their passes, 101, 
note; his discovery of a volcanic cra- 
ter in the valley of the Yucay, 109, 
note; and of fossil shells in Bolivia 
and Peru, 112, note; on measurement 
of highest peaks and mean heights of 
several mountain chains, 135, note; 
on horary variation of the barometer, 
265 ; on fishes of Lake of Titicaca, 
375 ; on the naturalization of the 
llama tribe, 431. 

Pepper-tree, 325. 

Perfume of flowers, cause of, 304, 

Persia, table-land of (Plateau of Iran), 
area and elevation of, 55 ; extent of 
Persian mountains, 57 ; great salt 
desert, 58: flora, 319. 

Petra, appearance of its site, 83. 

Petrel, stormy, the, 397. 

genus, or Procellariaj, 397, 408. 

Phacochoere, or Afaican hog, 425. 

Phalanger, 434. 

Pheasants, different species of, 401. 

Philedon, genus of birds, 401. 

Phoca^, or seals, 377. 

Physalia, 376. 



Physeters, or cachalots, 379. 

Pichincna, height of, 100. 

Planets, their magnitude relative to that 
of the earth, 15 ; their influence on 
the earth's motion, ib. 

Plants, division of, 306 ; propagation of, 
305: sleep of, ib ; nourishment of, 
300; elements of, 301; geographical 
distribution of, 306. 

Pleiocene period, the earth and its in- 
habitants during, 30; changes during, 
31; discoveries of perfect animals 
buried in this period, 32. 

Pceppig, Dr. his ' Travels' quoted, 94, 
176 ; on red water of the ocean, 370. 

Pole, North, reasons for the existence of 
sea at, 203. 

Poles, compression at, ascertained by 
perturbations in the moon's motions, 
15 ; by oscillations of the pendulum, 
17. 

Polynesia, flora of, 401. 

Polyplectron, genus of birds, 407. 

Pontoppidan, or sea-serpent, 381. 

Poppocatepeti, mountain, 121. 

Porcupine, 417. 

Porpoise, genus of, 379. 

Porter, G. R., Esq., his ' Progress of the 
Nation' quoted, 184, note. 

Porto Rico, dimensions and climate, 
117. 

Portugal, flora of, 319. 

Potato, country of, 350. 

Potosi, the height of, 97, note; city of, 
its elevation, 97; its mines, 175. 

Prairies, N. American, 127, note. 

Prairie-dog, a marmot, 427. 
wolf, 427. 



Prongbuck antelope, 427. 

Prongos, 315. 

Proteus anguinus, 386. 

Puma, or American lion, 428. 

Punjab, 80. 

Pyrenees, flora of, 318. 

Python, genus of snakes, 388. 



Q. 



Quadrumana, or monkeys, 413. 
Quadrupeds, European, 416; Asiatic, 

417; African, 423; American, 426; 

Australian, 433. 
Quagga, species of horse, 424. 
Quebec, summer of, 260. 
Quicksilver, diff'usion of, 178. 
Quito, valley of, 99 ; dimensions,' ib.; 

city of Quito, 100 ; monuments of the 

Incas, ib. 
Quotlamba mountains, 87. 



538 



INDEX. 



R. 



Races of mankind, 436 ; inhabiting Eu- 
rope, 441. 

Racoon, 427. 

Radii of the earth measured by M. 
Bessel, 16. 

Raikastal lake, 249. 

Rain, cause of, and distribution, 275. 

Rains, periodical, 275 ; countries with- 
out, 278. 

Rainbows, 283. 

Rattle-snakes, 387. 

Realejo Bay, 252. 

Redfield, W. C, on storms, 270, note. 

Reich, M., mean density of the earth as 
ascertained by the torsion balance, 
19, note. 

Reid, Colonel, on storms, 270. 

Rein-deer Lake, 252. 

Reptiles, classification of, 383; geo- 
graphical distribution of, 385. 

Rhinoceros of Asia, 422 ; of Java, ib. ; 
of Africa, 424. 

Rhyncops, or scissor-bill bird, 408. 

Rice, cultivation of, 356. 

Richardson, Dr. Sir J., his account of 
the fauna of North America quoted, 
131, 464. 

Rivers, origin of, 212 ; course of, ib. ; 
velocity, 213 ; junction of rivers, ib.; 
influence of wind and frost, 214 ; del- 
tas, ib. ; tides, ib.; floods, ib. ; inun- 
dations, 215 ; heads of rivers, ib. 

Rocks, their division into four classes, 
19; plutonic rocks, ib.; volcanic 
rocks, 20 ; metamorphic rocks, ib. ; 
aqueous rocks, 21; pierced by lava, i6.; 
Sir Charles Lyell's theory concerning, 
20 ; forms of, 42 ; height of calca- 
reous rocks in the Alps, 53. 

Rocky Mountains, 122. 

Rodentia, or gnawers, 414; American, 
432. 

Rogers, H. D., Esq., his « Physical Geo- 
graphy of North America' quoted, 
130. 

Rorqual, a species of whale, 381 . 

Ross, Sir James, his account of a gale, 
205, 454. 

Ruminating animals, 413. 

R,ussell, J. Scott, Esq., his « Theory of 
Waves' quoted, 195. note. 

Rye, cultivation of, 356. 



S. 



Sabine, Colonel, experiments with the 
pendulum, 18, and woie ; mean height 
of the Himalaya, 61; on terrestrial 
magnetism, 294, 464. 



Saquis, bush-tailed monkeys, 429. 

Sahama, trachytic dome of, its height, 
111. 

Sahara desert, 90. 

Salamanders, 386. 

Salt, diffusion of, 186. 

Samojedes, 442. 

Sanders-wood, 327. 

Sandwich Land, vegetation, 351 . 

Santa Martha, group of, 100. 

Saratov, 248. 

Saurians, order of, 389. 

Saussure, Necker, on direction of stra- 
tified masses, 295, 

Solimaun chain, 59. 

Scandinavian mountain system, 69 ; ex- 
tent and elevation, 70 ; part of the 
same system as those of Feroe, Bri- 
tain, Ireland, and northeastern Ire- 
land, ib. 

Schomburgk, Sir Robert, on water-com- 
munication in South America, 243. 

Schools, ragged, 473. 

Sclavonian races, 441. 

Scorpions, 366. 

Scotland, its mountains, 71; direction 
of, ib.; table-land, height of, ib.; 
lakes, ib. ; earthquakes, 154 ; coal- 
measures, 183. 

Scythrops, genus of birds, 409. 

Sea, its mean depth, 17; rise and fall of, 
after an earthquake, 155. 

Alps of North America, 122. 

— — serpents, pretended, 282. 

snakes, 387. 

Secretary-bird, the, 402. 

Sedgwick, Mr,, mountains of West- 
moreland, 44. 

Seed, mode of development, 300. 

Serpents, or ophidians, 386 ; venomous, 
ib. ; innocuous, 388 ; tree, ib. 

Shapee Lake, 248. 

Siberia, its area, 75 ; mineral riches, 
ib. ; soil, ib. ; climate, ib.; flora, 314. 

Sicily, plants of, 319. 

Sierra do Mar, 104. 

— — dos Vertentes, 105. 

Madre, 122. 

Silk-worms, 366. 

Silvas of the Amazons, 107 ; dense ve- 
getation, ib.; area of woodland, ib. ; 
Humboldt's description of, ib. ; geo- 
logy of, 114. 

Silver, diff'usion of, 175. 

Simayang, a species of ape, 422. 

Sinai, Mount (Jebel Houra), its height, 
82; group of Sinai, ib. 

Sine of the latitude, 17, note, 

Sir-i-Kol,lakeof, 249. 
Skaptar Jokul, eruption of, in 1783, 161. 
Skink, a species of lizard, 390. 
Skua gull, 396. 



INDEX. 



539 



Slave-lake, 252. 

Slave-trade, its evil effects, 459. 

Sleet, nature of, 283. 

Smyth, Captain, R. N., report of sound- 
ings, 46, note. 

Snae Braen, area of, 70. 

Snow, how produced, 278 ; form of its 
crystals, 279. 

Snov/.line, its height on mountains in 
different latitudes, 279. 

Solar system, 15, note. 
Jk. Sondan,261. 

South magnetic pole, its situation, 166. 

Senegambia, 89. 

South Shetland, vegetation, 352. 

— Wales, New character of the 
country, 137; structure, 139. 



'pain, 



its mountains, 47: table-land. 



area of, ib. ; plants of, 319. 

Spiders, numbers of, 367. 

Spitzbergen, 160. 

Springs, their origin, 209; intermittent, 
210; temperature, 211; hot springs, 
ib. ; medicinal springs, ib. ; saline 

' springs, ib. 

Squalls, arched, 271. 

Squirrels, flying, 422. 

Steam-power, amount of, in Great Bri- 
tain in 1S33, 172, note. 

St. Elias, Mount, height of, 123. 

Stelvio, pass of, its height, 50. 

Steppes of Eastern Europe, 74 ; great 
extent of, i&. ; climate, ib.; soil, ib.; 
atmosphere, 75. 

St. Lawrence, river, 12. 

Slonefield slate, 26. 

Storms, rotatory, 268 ; waves, 270, 

Strata, primary fossiliferous, 21 ; Cam- 
brian, 21 ; lower Silurian, ib.; upper 
Silurian, 22; secondary fossiliferous, 
ib.; Devonian, ib.; carboniferous, 
23," mountain limestone, z6. ; magne- 
sian limestone, 24 ; new red sand- 
stone, 25 ; oolite, ib. ; cretaceous 
strata, 27 ; tertiary strata, divided by 
Sir Charles Lyell into Eocene Mio- 
cene, and Pleiocene, 28 ; boulder 
formation, 32 ; parallel direction of 
contemporary strata, 43. 

tertiary, of the Alps, height of, 

53. 

Strachcy, Lieut., journeys, 17. 

Sudetes, the, 48. 

Suez, projected canal of, 461. 

Sulphur, diffusion of, 1S6. 

Sumatra, character of the island, 150. 

Sumbawa, population of, 438. 

Summa Paz, Sierra de la, 100. 

Sun, his mass, 15. 

Superior, Lake, 251. 

Symonds, Major A., on the depression 
of the Dead Sea, 84, note. 



Syren, genus of reptiles, 386. 

Syria, its soil, 84 ; deterioration of the 

country, ib. ; shrinking of the strata, 

ib. 
Swamps, area of, in Denmark, 74. 



T. 



Table-lands, their soil and climate, 45. 

Mountain (Cape Town), its height, 

86. 

Tanagras, American birds, 406. 

Tapir, Indian or Matayan, 419 ; Ameri- 
can, 414. 

Targatabai, volcanic range of, 152. 

Tartary, flora of, 321. 

Tariyani, tract of, 60. 

Taurus mountains, 296. 

Taylor, Mr., description of an ice-storm 
in Canada, 127. 

, John, Esq., on the Cornish 



mines, 172, note. 
Tchad, river and lake, 251. 
Tea, cultivation and varieties of, 321. 
Tehuantepec, isthmus of, 116, 252; 

bay, ih. 
Temperature of the ocean, 201; stratum 

of constant temperature, 202 ; line of 

maximum temperature, id. 
of the earth, 254; mean 

at any place, 257; highest observed, 

258. 
Terror, Mount, 166. 
Teutonic races, 442. 
Thean-Tchan, volcanic chain of, 152. 
Thian-shan, or Celestial Mountains, 69, 

etc. 
Thomas, St., island, 269. 
Thunder storms, 286 ; causes of, 287. 
Tiberias, Lake, 247. 
Tibet, table-land of (Oriertal plateau), 

its area and altitude, 55 ; its form and 

situation, 58; its width, 69; mean 

height, 134. 

, flora of, 316. 

Tides, influence of the sun and moon 

upon, 191 ; spring tides, 192 ; neap. 

tides, ih.; frequency of tides, ib ; 

Iheir succession, ib.; marginal tide, 

ib.; heights of tides, 193; variation 

in, ib. ; velocity, ib. ; stream, 194. 
Tierra del Fuego, account of, 94, 105 j 

geology, 113; flora of, 352. 
Tiger, royal, country of, 421. 
Tin, diffusion of, 178. 
Tinamon, an American bird, 407. 
Titicaca, lake of, 97; area and height, 

253. 
Toads, 384. 

Tobolsk, elevation of, 134. 
Tomboro, volcanic eruption of, in 1815, 

150. 



540 



INDEX. 



Toozla Lake, 248. 
Tortoises, 391. 
Trade-winds, 265. 

Tragopons, an East Indian bird, 401, 
Trees, growth of, 357 ; age of, ib. 
Trigonocephalus, or yellow ape, 387. 
Tripe de Roche, 314. 
Tristan d'Acunha, island, 282. 
Trogon, 401. 
Troupials. 406. 
Trub, lake of, 247. 
Tryonyx, 391. 

Tui, a New Zealand bird, 412. 
Tangui, or Chinese Tartary, its geo- 
graphical position, 60. 
Turks, 442. 
Turtles, 392. 

Tuscany, earthquakes in, 154. 
Tussack grass, 353. 



U. 



Uleaborg, 275. 
Ular, lake, 249. 
Unau sloth, the, 429. 
United States territory, area of, 130. 
Ural Mountains, 72 ; extent, ^&. ; height, 
ib. ; mineral riches, ib. ; geology, 73. 
Urmiah Lake, 248. 



Valaraaki, author of the Kamayana,439, 

note. 
"Valley of Death," 153. 
Vampire. bats, 420. 
Van, lake, 57, 248. 
Van Dieman's Land, area of, 138 ; 

mountains, ib. ; soil, ib. ; structure, 

139 ; flora, 337. 
Vanessa Cardia, a butterfly, 364. 
Vanilla Epidendron, 345. 
Variables, the, 265. 
Vegetation, mode of, 298; eff"ects of, 

on the atmosphere, 299. 
Veragua, Cordillera of, its height, 115. 
Verneuil, M. de, 67, note. 
Vermejo river, 349. 
Victoria Land, 165 ; ice cliffs, ib. ; 

mountains, ib. ; its appearance de- 
scribed, ib. 
Vicuna, 430 : its naturalization, ib. 
Vipers, 387.' 
Vultures, European, 398 ; American, 

404. 
Volcanic eruptions, frequency of, 153. 



Volcanic islands, 148. 
Volcanos, eruptions of, 20; active vol- 
canos, 152. 



W. 

Wales, earthquakes in, 154. 

Waves, causes of, 144 ; height, 195 ; 

ground-swell, ib. ,• billows, i6.; surf, 

196 ; force of waves, ib. 
Wealden clay, 27. 
Weddell, Dr., on Cinchona, 347, note ; 

on breed of alpaca and vicuna, 431. 
Werner, law of parallelism of mineral 

veins, 43. 
Western Asia, its table-lands and moun- 
tains, 65. 
West Indian islands, 116; Lesser An- 

tillas (group), ib. ; Greater Antillas, 

117; Bahamas, 118; structure, i6. 
Whales, 380. 

Wheat, varieties and cultivation, 355. 
Whirlwinds, 271. 
[Wilkes, Capt. C, discovery of Antarctic 

Continent, 167.] 
Winds, theory of, 264 ; trade, 265. 
Winnipeg Lake, 252. 
Wombat, 434. 
Wrangel, Admiral, on the climate of 

Siberia, 76 ; his attempt to reach the 

North Pole, ib., note. 



X. 

Xarayos Lake, 252. 

Y. 

Yablonnoi Khrebet, 66. 

Mountains, 296. 



Yakutsk, "the coldest town on 'the 

earth," 77, 260. 
Ybera, swamp, its area, 107. 
Yenesei, flora of, 316. 



Z. 



Zambese, lake, Africa, 250. 

Zealand, New, its mountains, 141 ; 

coast, ib. ; general character, ib. 
Zebra, 424. 

Zenes, their breadth, 16. 
Zungary, or Mingolia, its situation, 60. 
Zurrah, lake, 248. 



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